Sonic Ballistic
by Shblue
Summary: A few years after Sonic & Knuckles, Dr. Robotnik returns with a raging yet calculated vengance to conquer Mobius and punish Sonic forever. What seems like an ordinary adventure at first will slowly transform and change everything Sonic knows about being a hero. - Childhood fangame idea reimagined as a hardcore epic, and depicted in text. Finished 2010, uploaded here first.
1. Sonic Ballistic, Introduction

Introduction

**Hello**

I originally drew Sonic Ballistic as a series of 30 level maps in 2000, which is something I did a lot as a kid. At the time I just got Sonic CD and was inspired by it. I saw every 6 levels I drew as a "CD", or the length of 1 Sonic game. Although, comparing my maps with maps from the official games, each "CD" would actually be a quarter as long as a full Sonic game, but that's besides the point. Anyway, the boss at the end of each "CD" was basically Zelos, from _Skies of Arcadia_, who would increase in power by stealing Chaos Emeralds after Sonic gets them (instead of the Moon Crystals of _SoA_). The final boss was naturally Zelos in his final form (although he looked much more like Astro Man from _Mega Man 8_). There was no story. I just drew what I liked.

In 2009, my Sonic fandom was burning out. I saw Sonic Rush Adventure as the last good Sonic game and I was convinced Sonic would soon die in obscurity. I felt like my childhood values had become meaningless and when I looked to the adult world for hope, I only saw endless work, ignorance, and death. I became cynical and detached from the world, but I was filled with ideas. Using these ideas, I wanted to give Sonic one final hug before we parted ways, in the form of a fangame (in the form of a fanfiction, since I can't program, and wouldn't program something this long anyway). I wanted it to be a testament to my fandom.

I designed the game as I began writing. From the very start, I decided I must focus on two characters over all else: Sonic, and Dr. Robotnik. They are the two polarities that define the Sonic world, and to make the ultimate Sonic game, their characters would have to be explored to the limit. I had to adapt the 2000 version, too, so I turned Zelos into Mechanix. Instead of focusing on Mechanix's character, I pushed his essence as a transforming boss instead to the utmost limit. And in opposition to how most Sonic games feel isolated from the rest, I wanted to deeply explore the origins of almost all of the Sonic world phenomena, such as the Chaos Emeralds. All of this made the story rather long, but that was exactly what I needed to see how far the story of Sonic and Dr. Robotnik can go.

In 2010, after a year and half of daily writing, I finished. This is the first place I've uploaded it.

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Currently, I am slowly re-reading from the start and improving sections Act by Act. I'm not taking anything out, just improving parts that need improving.

Part 1 was in its second draft, but now it's in its third.

Update [7.23.12]: Part 2 is now in its second draft.

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**Maturity Warning**

NO KIDS ALLOWED. This story is for **MATURE** readers. It has a lot of cursing and mature themes, and nearly constant mild-to-moderate violence which can become extreme. Specifically, there are some disturbing scenes which are _very graphic _and I will place _[Warnings]_ before the worst of them. If you are not MATURE, I am not responsible for whatever happens to you if you ignore this warning and continue reading, whether it's parental, psychological, criminal or otherwise. If you are mature, it's _probably_ nothing you haven't 'seen' already.

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**The Fangame Fanfic**

This fanfiction is a detailed walkthrough of an imaginary video game, including the cutscenes. It should be read as if you are watching a video game being played, because there are 2 types of narration:

- The main type is game-oriented narration which describes gameplay, level design, and what Sonic _can_ or _should_ do. _This is when the player controls Sonic in the game. _In general, level layouts are not described down to every single thing Sonic encounters_. _It's up to you, the reader, on how or whether to imagine these parts. It may be easier if you are familiar with a Sonic game.

- The other type is story-oriented narration or cutscenes which transcribes the cutscenes and _exactly_ what Sonic and other characters _say_ and _do_. _This is when the player cannot control Sonic and when Sonic moves on his own._

These two types will generally be separated by two line breaks, which is currently marked by a period as you see here. I'm sorry if it's annoying.

_._

The text is organized as the game would be. There are 10 parts or chapters to the story, with each part equivalent to the length of an original Sonic game. Like the original games, each part is separated into differently themed zones, about 6 zones per part on average. Each zone is further separated into Acts, which are the individual levels.

You may notice that every zone has a dyad like (x/y). x is the Part number and y is the total zone number. So (4/19) is the 19th zone in the game, in the 4th chapter of the story. They are useful if you want to find a particular zone with your browser's search function (Ctrl+F for Windows).

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All Acts are organized in this document like this:

Zone title [Act 1] (x/y)

_description of stage music. comments on gameplay. optional._

game-oriented narration

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story-oriented narration

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[Act 1 Boss]

game-oriented narration: physical description, list of attacks:

- attack 1

- attack 2

game-oriented narration: how to attack boss, additional boss phases

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story-oriented narration

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[Act 2] ... etc.

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Nearly every Act ends in a cutscene, and most have a Boss after the Act. The Boss may start with a cutscene, too.

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**General Game Information**

Sonic Ballistic retains most of the mechanics of the previous games, but it removes a few and adds some new ones. The most significant difference, besides the overall length and the cutscenes, is the much stronger difficulty curve. The game starts as easy as the first Sonic games, but the difficulty grows far beyond anything like them. In short, it becomes a platformer slightly above the difficulty of a bullet hell shoot-em-up. This is a 'hardcore gamer's Sonic game'.

Due to the game's vast amount of data from all of the levels and cutscenes, it would best be released for gaming computers and consoles past 2008. The instruction manual would cover this document's introduction, the story background, this section, and the outroduction. (Don't read it yet, it has spoilers!) It would be filled with screenshots and concept art. It is questionable to do, but it could also potentially be a full strategy guide, essentially being this whole document with illustrations.

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Before getting into the details, I will specify various terms that will be used often throughout the document for the reader's sake.

_the game/this game_: Sonic Ballistic as a game rather than as a text, story, or fanfiction

_the previous games_: Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles

_the reader_: you!

_the player_: the typical person playing the game

_the screen_: the 2-dimensional rectangular surface on which the game's visuals are displayed

_the camera_: the viewpoint of the screen 'into' the game world

_Sonic_: the main character, and the controllable avatar of the player in the game world

_level_: the current map which Sonic travels through, containing the background, foreground, and all objects

_level theme/BGM_: a level's background music. Every level has a separate and unique BGM.

_zone/stage_: an episode in the story, marked by a stage name (e.g. Blue Hill). It contains Acts and Act Bosses.

_Act_: a level. Shares similar visuals, objects, gameplay, and music to other Acts in a stage. Usually ends with a Boss level

_Boss/Act Boss/Boss level_: a very small level only meant to be a battlefield between Sonic and the boss

_boss_ (lower case): a powerful enemy located only in Boss levels that must be defeated before the Boss level is completed.

_death_: when Sonic is hurt without rings to protect him, he dies and the player cannot control him until the player restarts the level

_Part_: a chapter in the story, marked by a number. It contains stages. There are 10 Parts in the entire game.

___._

Controls

_Direction-pad (D-Pad)/Analog stick_: Used for the following four directions.

_Up_: Moves up on a menu. Makes Sonic look up if he is stationary, causing the screen to slide up about a half-screen's height until Sonic moves again.

_Down_: Moves down on a menu. Makes Sonic crouch down if he is stationary, causing the screen to slide down about a half-screen's height until Sonic moves again. Makes Sonic tuck into a rolling spinball if he is running. If Down is released while charging a spindash, Sonic will spindash in the direction he is facing in with the impulse from how many times he charged it.

_Left_: Moves left on a menu. Makes Sonic move left. Sonic will start at a jog and accelerate to his top speed if nothing gets in the way. If something is in the way, Sonic will push himself against it.

_Right_: Moves right on a menu. Makes Sonic move right. Sonic will start at a jog and accelerate to his top speed if nothing gets in the way. If something is in the way, Sonic will push himself against it.

_Diagonals_: Move Sonic diagonally if he is flying.

_Button 1/Start button_: Skips opening credit screens. Skips Title Screen opening. Goes to File Select at the Title Screen. Selects an option on a menu or a file in File Select. Skips a cutscene if it was already watched once. Pauses the game during gameplay.

_Button 2/Action button/A Button/C Button_: Selects an option on a menu. Makes Sonic jump if he is not crouched down. Makes Sonic charge his spindash with one charge if he is crouched down. Makes Sonic air-shield if he is already in the air. Makes Sonic transform if he is in the air and has the required Emeralds.

_Button 3/Cancel button/B button_: Cancels at a confirmation. Returns the player to File Select if in Demos List, or to the Title Screen if in File Select.

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Title Screen

When the player starts the game (after setting up video settings if it's on PC), thanks and copyright information for Sega/Sonic Team fades in on a black screen. That fades out and then an opening credit for me fades in, also on black, and fades out similarly. The player can press any button to skip through these screens.

The title screen then fades in and the title theme starts playing. The 'camera' is in the sky halfway between the clouds and ground. It very rapidly scans across the surface of Mobius, revealing levels from afar that the player will eventually play through. After a few seconds, it slows down to be above whichever level the player last played (for a new game, it will be above Blue Hill). Although most levels can be shown, a few aren't within the camera's 'scope' so the last level that is, will be shown. It slowly revolves in the air facing the center of the level. This happens in about 5 seconds.

Once the 'camera' is settled, a ring with square sides spins out of thin-air with golden sparkles. As it does so, a red-and-white striped ribbon comes out and spins with it, although more slowly. As the ring slows to face the screen and the ribbon settles beneath it, somewhat realistic white wings open from both sides of the ring and the circular hollow space within it quickly fades to shadow.

Just as that inner space turns pitch-black, Sonic leaps out of the void towards the screen with an outstretched fist, and the black turns to a frenetic tie-dye-like rainbow energy. At the same time, the word "Sonic" glows white on the top of the ribbon before taking a sleek, shiny blue color. Sonic leans back from his leap, pulling his fist back but keeping it clenched. At the end of the 'snapback', the word "Ballistic" burns an even brighter white below "Sonic" on the ribbon, before cooling down to a hot, glowing orange. Sonic puffs up his chest which isn't as squat as before, and smirks confidently with a narrowed brow, as if ready to fight and win. He coolly rests his other arm on the side of the ring, and he bobs his head and slightly moves his body to the beat of the title theme. Naturally he blinks, but also every 4-5 seconds he opens his fist and stretches out his four fingers in a quick flick before tightening his grip again. As a neat effect, the light from the sun (or moon, or light from the ground) will shine off the ring, Sonic, and the letters on the ribbon as the 'camera' revolves around its position.

After "Sonic Ballistic" appears on the ribbon, the words "Game Start" appear letter by letter after very brief flashes of light in a smaller font size. Every 2 seconds a pulse of bright color goes through the letters.

The opening sequence can be skipped by pressing Start, bringing the player to the finished Title Screen. Another press of Start brings the player to the File Select.

If the player waits for about 30 seconds, the screen fades out and then fades into a 60 second demo reel of gameplay. On the first play, it will be a pre-recorded demo of Blue Hill. But once the player plays, demos are recorded from the player's playthrough! The demo played is chosen from a random level, and for every level there will be 3 types of demos and 3 recordings of each type that is randomly chosen to play. The 3 types are: a normal demo, a demo showing the player dying, and a demo from the fastest run for that level so far.

File Select

This game saves the player's progress, like Sonic 3. Unlike Sonic 3, which saved every new Zone, this game saves at every Act and Boss. It also saves the best time of each Act and Boss, and demos of playthroughs. The player can press the Cancel button to return to the Title Screen.

There are 10 files lined up as vertical rectangles. At the top of each is a square showing a visual depiction of the last-played stage, and below is the stage's name, the Act number or the Act's Boss with the number, and the Part. A new or unsaved file will simply be blank and white. There are 5 files showed on screen, and the screen moves to show the next file as the player moves left or right. At the very right of the File Select beyond the last file is a No-Save file, a Delete rectangle, and a Demos rectangle.

If the Delete rectangle is selected, the player can then choose any file to delete except for the No-Save file. By choosing with Start or the Action button, there is a confirmation, "Press again to delete." The player can move off of the file or press the Cancel button to cancel the confirmation, but if the delete is confirmed with Start or Action, a stripe of light sheens across the file, replacing it with an unsaved file for that file.

If the Demos rectangle is selected, the screen fades to the Demos List.

Demos List

This new menu vertically lists all of the Demos for each level with their File number, time and ring count. At the top, under the words "Demos List", is a horizontal series of images (thumbnails of what would be shown on a file back in File Select) for each Act and Boss of each Stage that has been played so far. Between that series and the list of Demos is an option to return to File Select, although pressing the Cancel button does the same thing. At the bottom of each level's list of demos is an option to "Play all for this stage", "Play all for this Part", and "Play all for the whole game". After selecting any of these, the player can then choose to "Play demos on this playthrough" or "Play fastest demos".

Once a demo is selected, it plays the recording. If a "Play all" option is confirmed, all of the individual demos are composed into one single demo. The recording perfectly follows the recorded playthrough from the start of the [first] level to the end of the [last] level.

During a demo being played, the Cancel button returns the player to the Demos List. The Start or Action Button pauses the playthrough on that very frame. When paused, if the player holds left the recording rewinds at normal speed, and if the player holds right the recording fast-forwards at double speed. If the player only taps left or right, the recording moves backwards or forward only by one frame at a time.

If the player taps down, the recording skips backward 1 second, and if the player taps up, the recording skips forward 1 second. If the player holds down, the recording reverses 10 seconds every second, and if the player holds up, the recording fast-forwards 10 seconds every second.

If the player presses Start or Cancel while holding left, right, down, or up, the recording will return to its paused state. If the player presses Action, the recording will continue according to what direction is pressed such that the player can stop holding the direction and let the recording run along as it would hands-free.

Diagonals are interpreted as their horizontal components (left or right) on a D-Pad. On an analog stick, the diagonal is interpreted as whichever directional component the diagonal is closest to.

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Gameplay Elements

Score

___There is no score counter, and no score._

Time

___There is no time counter (on a story playthrough), and no time outs. _

However, when replaying a stage (from stage select), there is a timer displayed below the ring counter. The timer is set to the current time record, which will be the one set during the story playthrough, and counts down from there. "A new record!" will display on-screen and a jingle will sound when the act is finished before the timer reaches or passes "0:00". If the timer does pass "0:00", it will change color to red and count up to, and from, "-0:01".

Rings

___The only counter overlaid on-screen is the ring counter._

In this game, Power Rings, or 'rings' for short, are the sole collectible and are equivalent to health. The exact position and amount of rings in an act will generally not be specified because of their near-ubiquitous nature. Whenever Sonic is hit by an enemy attack or environmental hazard, he will lose rings, be knocked back, and flash invincible for 1.25 seconds. In this game, he will only lose so many rings as the level of damage done to him. The weakest hit will make Sonic drop 5 rings, but stronger hits will make him drop 10, 15, 20, etc. If the damage is greater than or equivalent to his number of rings, all of his rings will escape his grasp. Most of these rings are not gone forever; in fact, if he is quick enough, Sonic can recollect his rings and effectively regain his health.

However, a percentage of the rings he loses will fly far away from him and disappear with a sparkle. This percentage of surely-lost rings is dependent on how many rings he has; in general, the more rings he has the more he will completely lose.

Unlike previous games, Sonic will keep all of the rings he has through every Act and Boss, UP UNTIL the Part is completed. Then he will lose them all. This keeps novice players safe in the beginning of new levels. It also gives expert players bragging rights for their All-of-Part Demos. However, Sonic cannot hold any more than 10,000 rings. In most Parts, he won't come anywhere close to that maximum limit.

Life

___There is no life counter, as there are no lives. Likewise, there are no game overs or continues. _

___[Warning: Following paragraph explains dying and may be disturbing.]_

Unlike previous games, Sonic will no longer simply jump into the foreground and fall off-screen when he dies. Sonic will die more 'realistically'. That is, he will be knocked according to the direction and power of what attacks him, losing blood and possibly breaking bones in the process. If he hits anything in the way, those impacts will also be animated. Wherever he stops moving, he will lie there dead, bleeding out if he is bleeding until he is pale from complete exsanguination. Even then his body can be beaten and tossed around. If he is squished to death, he will be squished in a gory splash of blood and guts. The screen will stay centered on Sonic's corpse forever unless the player presses Start.

Whenever the player presses Start, even if it's right when Sonic dies, the screen quickly fades out to black and fades in to Sonic at where he restarts in 2 seconds. The title card does not reappear after the fade-in, unlike previous games. Like previous games, he restarts at the last passed starpost or the act's beginning if he did not activate any.

Starposts exist in nearly every level and have the same in function as in Sonic 1. They are located at the calm points between the distinct sections of the level. They are activated when Sonic runs past them on foot. If he jumps over them or passes the horizontal points above or below them, they are not activated. Whenever Sonic dies, he restarts at the last starpost he activated. If the player quits the game before beating a level, Sonic will restart at the level's start and all starposts after that are deactivated. Starposts have no other function, such as forming a star-lined portal to the Special Zone as in Sonic 2, 3, and S&K.

Objects

Sonic will almost always be slightly left-of-center on the screen. The screen follows him as he runs and jumps. Strong impulses, such as from spindashes, will cause the screen to stay stationary until Sonic is a certain amount of pixels from the edge of screen, when it then catches up and stays pinned on him. This helps boost the illusion of speed in such cases. However, while in previous games extreme impulses and speeds could send Sonic off-screen, that will never happen in this game. This is important, as in previous games when this happens, while the screen tries to catch up, Sonic loses collision detection and could 'teleport' into places he shouldn't physically be.

___The ring counter will always be in the upper-left hand corner of the screen._

___There are inanimate hazards of various sorts, most commonly being projectiles shot from enemies and bosses._

___There are inanimate objects which Sonic can interact with. These include breakable obstacles, rings and starposts._

___There are enemies and bosses with programmed AI's. Unlike previous games, their positions and actions are always in memory as long as Sonic is in the same Act or Act Boss with them. This is necessary as some enemies and bosses will traverse large sections of levels, sometimes even following Sonic._

___There are animate characters with programmed AI's that may interact with hazards, objects, enemies, bosses, and other animate characters. Sonic CANNOT interact with them, however._

___There are no Special Rings._

___There are no springs or speed boosters._

___There are no item boxes. This includes ring boxes, speed-up boxes, invincibility boxes, power shield boxes, elemental shield boxes, and ____Robotnik damage boxes_.

___There are no end-level signposts, roboticizer capsules, or score checks. _When the end of an Act is reached, the following cutscene, Boss, or Act begins immediately. 


	2. Sonic Ballistic, Part 1

**Sonic Ballistic**

**Story Background **

This story takes place a few years after _Sonic & Knuckles_ and is the 'true' Sonic 4 in this timeline. All games up until _Sonic & Knuckles_ are canon (except Sonic CD) but only the events of _Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, _and_ Sonic & Knuckles_ are important. No other Sonic media is canon.

Since Dr. Robotnik's last defeat by Hyper Sonic at the _Doomsday Zone_, the doctor has completely disappeared, finally leaving Mobius in peace. The anthropomorphic Mobians, free from Dr. Robotnik's onslaught and enslavement into robotic servitude, developed a new civilization centered at Grand City, where most of them now live. Sonic and Tails have got a little bit older and mostly spent their free time exploring Mobius. A few days before the story begins, Sonic goes to meet up with Tails at his house, only to find a letter Tails wrote for him, hastily nailed to the door. Sonic reads it and runs towards Blue Hill.

_Please see the General Game Information in the Introduction if at any point you are unsure of what is being referred to in the game explanations._

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Part 1

_The screen fades in from black. Sonic runs on screen and is now able to be controlled by the player._

_____Every Act begins with a title card designed to reflect the style of the stage which displays the name of the Stage and the Act number. It slides on-screen, stays still, and slides off-screen in about 3 seconds._ And so the first title card appears:

**Blue Hill** [Act 1 and 2] (1/1)

_This is the introduction level. It has no enemies nor anything that will hurt Sonic. Its first objective is to present the most basic mechanics: running and jumping. Its second objective is to portray these mechanics as tools to overcome obstacles that are, in this case, literally in the way. As the game progresses, skill in these two mechanics, collectively known as 'platforming', will become increasingly important._

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_For Act 1, the background music slowly comes in with a deep, low bass making slow revolutions. The squares bumble their way in lazily. Sloppy hi-hat hits slip in every now and then, with a rhythm akin to someone dragging their feet. _

_After a while, as the sun rises, the beats pick up. Fresh snares come in and the leading synths get more spritely and jazzy. The bass still does its own thing, slowly coming into focus. _

_As more sounds of vibrant, interesting texture and sexy drums are thrown in, keeping apace to the jumpy rhythm, the golden melody shines through just as the sun fully reveals itself from the obscuring horizon. It remains at this speed, with the instruments harmonizing and building off each other through the verses. Once the chorus hits, the hook explodes out with assertive chords that are then each taken and made into catchy subphrases that match with the running bounciness of the backing rhythm._

_Act 2's background music will be introduced in the same way, except the instruments will come to full play in a shorter time, and their sounds have greater certainty from the start, as well._

_Near the end of both stages, the drums will pick up speed and the crescendos will become less catchy and more harmonious. It would feel slightly "liquefied" as opposed to the "solid" strikes of the original chorus. This is an anticipatory signal of the stage's end, balancing out the comely introduction which opened it up._

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Sonic runs forward. The sun rises slowly over a gently rolling hill covered with blue grass and broad-leaved trees. Entering Blue Hill, he is presented with a variety of simple geological obstacles to dash through easily. There are boulders in the way to hop over, as well as small chasms that require running leaps to cross, but it is mostly flat ground. As Sonic climbs the hill, the slope gets increasingly steeper until he needs to jump off rock faces to climb the final cliff, but he never loses speed. A few of the rocks are fragile and will break when he lands on them or spindashes through them.

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Sonic holds a note he found at Tails' house which says, "Come quick. Blue Hill top. Serious situation. Will explain on arrival. -Tails"

The words are curiously serious and he's interested in what they mean. But he is carefree, bounding towards his destination effortlessly. The ground blurs underneath him. The blue grass flies by so fast it seems like Sonic is running on water. The world is nothing to his feet. He jumps through an overhanging boulder, splitting it into pieces. He lands on a flat ledge and looks backwards, seeing all the land he once ran over. He remembers every span of distance he ran across in his life...

Sonic is shot in the ears with an earsplitting bang. A gun. A gun?! It came from the clifftop. A moment afterwards, he hears a scream.

"Sonic!" Tails cries.

He is already running at full speed. He rockets up the ledges on the final stretch of the cliff and lands onto the flat hilltop. He sees Tails, pushed down on the ground, his mouth taped over, his limbs tied and aggressively locked down by motionless robots, their electric eyes glaring at nothing. Egg Robos. He sees the gun, its silver flashing in the morning sun. He already knew who. Who else? His eyes tracked up the arm to the man holding it.

"Robotnik!" Sonic shouted.

"You. You. It is you." Robotnik grumbles.

Sonic is unsettled by the response. Robotnik is nearly gritting his teeth, he's steaming so furiously. Sonic tries to ignore it. "Get that thing off Tails' head, or I'll..."

"Four times," Robotnik impedes. "You trounced me... four times! Every robot! Every weapon! And everything else you did! I was stupid. As carefree as you were. No more. I have had enough of my **losses**!"

Sonic snapped back, "It is really sad, isn't it! You never learn to give up – 'cause I'll take you down every time you try something **stupid**, like now. If you don't get that... that _damn_ thing off of him, I'll buzz your arm off for you!" He scowled, but kept his distance. He could stop him, but this was new, and that was Tails, and that was a gun...

"No, Sonic. You will do nothing. I am sick of playing your kiddy games and _losing.._. losing like an idiot! I am the world's greatest genius! Because of you, I forgot such an obvious thing... but that's the past, the past..."

Robotnik starts smiling. "This is how my genius plan begins, right here, right now. You, this mangy little pup, and your stupid world of peace are going to die, slowly, very, very slowly... and I will win. Heh. Haha. Ahahaha!" He lifts the gun as he laughs to himself.

Sonic loses patience, bored of tapping his feet. "Are you done now?!"

He charges at Robotnik, but is stopped by a new type of Egg Robo. In a blur it sidestepped in front of Robotnik. It resembles Robotnik to a much greater degree than the other Egg Robos did. It was his exact height and body shape, its metallic armor designed exactly like the red and black suit Robotnik always wears. Yet as an Egg Robo, it carries a jetpack and a holster for its beam gun.

"Egg Hunter, keep Sonic at bay." Robotnik commands.

Egg Hunter rams and knocks Sonic back, who's still unused to this new degree of enemy speed. Robotnik turns around to his Egg-o-Matic, his typical one-seater modular vehicle. This version is slightly larger and has a door on the side. Robotnik nonchalantly opens the door, then turns around again, grabs and picks Tails off of the ground with one arm as the two Egg Robos moved aside. He carelessly tosses Tails against the backseat. All the while Sonic tried to get close but Egg Hunter repeatedly blocked and pushed him away. How was it so fast? Robotnik was moving so slow!

Robotnik climbs in as Sonic finally gets a chance to slip past. Just as Sonic gets close, the Egg-o-Matic rises just out of his jumping range.

Robotnik turns over the door and looks down at Sonic."My final plan is perfect and absolute, so masterfully conceived that I have planned for your every possible action. Your very reality shall fester and decay into fetid chunks from your inside, out, and you will squirm and scream to the very end until you beg me to kill you. This is the end, Sonic. You are a hero no longer." He turns his head and starts laughing quietly to himself.

He then zips into the distance just as Tails wriggled his way to the edge. Sonic snorts, noting him fly towards the red mountain across from other side of the hilltop.

He then turns around, seeing Egg Hunter standing still, as he thought he was doing. Its eyes were flashing colors, but stopped when it saw Sonic turn. The two Egg Robos pulled up their guns. As they did so, he hears a dozen or so rockets pop and fly off behind him, and turns his head to see eighteen more Egg Robos launch out of the jungle between Blue Hill and the mountain. In seconds, they land one by one around Sonic.

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Blue Hill [Boss]

_This is the introduction boss. Its objective is to introduce combat. In Sonic Ballistic, this involves two components: evading and attacking. _

_A new mechanism (although it was always available) is the spindash, where Sonic will curl into a ball on the ground, make himself spin in place, charge his spin such that he rotates even faster, and lets loose, rolling across the ground. When in spinball form, he will initially move at a speed related to how much he charged his spin, to a maximum limit. When Sonic jumps, he will also be in spinball form. _

_Any object which is weaker than his spinball will be destroyed instantly as he passes through it with a spindash or bounces off of it with a jump, typically exploding into various pieces, releasing a small animal inside. Objects which are stronger than his spinball will be partially damaged, and this damage will be hereafter referred to as a 'hit'. Strong enemies and some objects require several hits before being destroyed. Some objects may not even be affected at all by the spinball, but these will mostly be environmental objects and hazards, and not enemies. If an enemy runs into Sonic as he charges his spindash in place, this also counts as a hit._

___If the player tries to make Sonic jump again while already in the air, Sonic will project his air shield (as in Sonic 3 & K). The air shield is the same distance from Sonic's spinball form as before and likewise does a single hit of damage to enemies. In this game, it can also deflect all weak attacks and projectiles. It is not necessary to learn to beat the game._

_If Sonic is hit by an enemy attack or environmental hazard at any time including in spinball form, he will be hit._

_In evasion from attacks, the safer method is to run, jump, or roll away, but Sonic may not always have the space to do so. If he judges where the attack is going, he can jump over or roll under it, too. _

_In order to maximize both safety and strength in battle, the player must learn the skill of observing the enemy's attacks, evading those attacks as they come, and striking immediately after when the attack is over and the enemy is most vulnerable. As the game progresses, enemies and bosses will become increasingly aggressive and the player must adapt to prevail. _

_._

On that hilltop at the peak of Blue Hill, overlooking the dense jungle and mountain ahead of him, Sonic finds himself completely encircled by 20 Egg Robos. Each one is persistent and will not cease attacking until it is destroyed.

An Egg Robo's attacks consist of:

- firing a directed, pulsed concentration of energy from its beam gun,

- punching once with its free hand when near Sonic,

- or launching 1 of 2 very slow-moving homing missiles from its backpack, which can be destroyed if attacked.

They will randomly move close and far from Sonic, including flying into the air (within jumping distance). One Egg Robo ceases functioning after two hits.

.

Egg Hunter fights in much the same way, however:

- his pulsed beams and missiles move quicker,

- he fires 3 beams one after another instead of just one at a time,

- he fires 2 out of 8 missiles,

- and his punch is not a simple jab but a 3-hit combo that stunlocks Sonic (keeps him stuck, unable to recollect rings, until the combo is finished).

He moves twice as fast as the other Egg Robos and tends to move to Sonic's blind spot. He goes down after eight hits in total.

.

Fortunately, they don't all attack at once. Instead, the battle progresses in waves:

Wave 1: 1 Egg Robo

Wave 2: 2 Egg Robos

Wave 3: 2 Egg Robos

Wave 4: Egg Hunter (two hits before retreating)

Wave 5: 3 Egg Robos

Wave 6: 4 Egg Robos

Wave 7: Egg Hunter (two hits) and 2 Egg Robos

Wave 8: 5 Egg Robos

Wave 9: Egg Hunter (four hits) and 1 Egg Robo

.

.

**Torch Temple** [Act 1] (1/2)

_This level is where enemies start regularly appearing outside of boss battles. However, there_ _will not be extended descriptions of enemy types or their locations in this manual. Unless stated otherwise, from now on every act has enemies. Additionally, the enemies reasonably fit the level's theme and difficulty in their types, positions and numbers. _

_There are many enemies from previous acts and Sonic games that may appear unexpectedly in addition to the new types. Nearly all enemies will attack Sonic on sight or otherwise defend a position from him, but there are a few who are malfunctioning or who even wander around peacefully. While uncommon, especially in the beginning of the game, there are a few 'elite' units which are stronger and slightly smarter than their counterparts. They will chase or hunt Sonic down through the act, even to the boss, as long as the path is clear. When destroyed, they release power rings instead of animals and the stronger they are the more they release, up to a maximum of 20 rings. Rarer than elites are 'allies' who actually help Sonic fight back their metal kin, but they are not 'elite' strength and they appear even less often in later levels._

_._

_All of the instruments are purely percussive, on every side of the frequency spectrum. They thump out a sound like the steps of a fierce predator, pouncing and chasing the player with sheer power and speed. They are repetitive, with few changes, but they are entrancing with their natural sound._

_Once Sonic enters the caverns, all sound stops. After a short period, a sole, distant drum hits once. It echoes for a long time, giving an impression of an endless expanse in space. It hits two times, the sounds reverberating off each other._

_In the underground ruins, more drums pick up from the darkness. They have a steady pace, although the lead teeters between the new voices. They speak a tale reminiscent of people. A people who are fighting for their lives. The sounds are desperate. They are longing._

_Whenever Sonic enters a room with a mosaic that tells the story of the ancient past, the drums will quiet down. The silence of the cold room seeps in. From this gargantuan abyss, a voice of completely alien form calls out. It holds pitches and then, as if without cause, spontaneously skitters across the shadows. It is without melody, without direction. It seems to howl. It sounds in pain. It coughs and shutters, then it falls. Yet it still whispers under this pressure, as the drums speak on without concern. It takes a breath, says a few more words, and vanishes again._

_In the thin, dark cavern near the end, the one drum, in an instant, rattles itself and slowly trails off into the threatening environment. It plays an eerie, imposing sound, warning the player of danger ahead._

_._

Sonic jumps off of the other side of Blue Hill's summit and starts the level running down the nearly vertical rock cliff on the other side. Blue Hill sits right next to a deep valley filled with a dense jungle, surrounded by a ridge of dark red mountains. Within seconds the cliff curves and evens out as Sonic dashes into the shade of the tall and entangled flora.

Half of the first act will be navigating these woods and the rapidly moving rivers within. Although his path is fairly unobstructed, Sonic can easily jump over all of the fallen trees and rocks in his way. The rivers' currents will crush Sonic against the large bedrocks if he's not careful, so he might find it safer to cross them using the trees' branches instead of risking a running leap. Robotnik's robotic minions are all on scouting duties and do not notice Sonic unless he gets very close to them.

Upon arriving at the mountain, he will find an entrance in a cave at the base, with trees and brush cleared out of the way as if it was frequently used. Mixed with the cut timber swept to the side is rubble of hewn stone which bare engraved markings. Smaller bits of the rubble are strewn about the cave's entrance and it seems there was once a solid stone door there.

.

The cave has a flat floor and the walls smoothly curved around in an oblong shape, as if mechanically dug. The light of the sun falls into pitch-black shadow which is lit up in even increments by torches carved out of the walls. Their flames blur together as Sonic speeds through the cave with nothing in his way. The cave slopes down, curves around, and continues for quite some time.

After a little less than a minute, somewhere far underground, the cave suddenly opens up to thrice its size. Before Sonic is a facade of an ancient temple with abstract religious decoration cut into the rock, vividly expressed with great light and shadow from four large torches against the facade. He follows the tiled stone floor within, past fallen columns and broken structures of some old, unknowable purpose. The temple is divided by rectangular chambers which are identical except for the wide mosaics on the walls. They are dusty and fractured but as Sonic walks from room to room what he can make out seems to depict a story. Somehow, he is reminded of the mosaic in the Sky Sanctuary (as seen in _Sonic & Knuckles_).

.

- The first mosaic shows a large circle made of concentric rings around a messy knot of erratic zig-zagging lines. Short and flat across the bottom is a series of vertical shapes that resembles a large city.

- The second shows many horizontal lines of people walking close together through many small tunnels.

- The third shows two landscapes split by a horizontal line. The one above contains nothing but fire. The one below is clearly a city, with many people standing at the bottom, their heads turned upwards.

- The fourth shows the tunnels again, but at the right side they all connect to a single space filled with fire. Anthropomorphic figures of smoke run the other way through the tunnels, brutally killing with fists, knees, and choking grips all the people that remain in the tunnels with them.

- The final room is the most ruined with holes in the walls and large piles of rubble. The last mosaic shows a line of people on the bottom kowtowing towards something in the center which was replaced with a large hole in the wall. On longer inspection, most of the cracks in the wall seemed to focus right on this point, as if someone had smashed the depiction out of spite. Despite this, halos and rays radiated from it across the entire mosaic and are even marked across the ceiling, floor, and the other walls. Sonic walks closer, and he sees the people in this one were portrayed with very shaky lines and a grotesque anatomy of tiny heads and large feet and legs. The mosaic pieces themselves were very irregular. Sonic feels an uncanny unease looking at this one in particular.

.

The following chambers have no mosaics and were similarly dilapidated. Although he notices a few stone doors, Sonic keeps going straight until he comes to a small square antechamber at the end with walls of 4 columns each around a small, broken offering table in the center. The torches are out in this room, but the room is still lit by a red glow coming through the small open doorway at the end.

Walking through it, Sonic enters an obsidian cavern with a cramped width not much larger than the doorway itself, which yet stretched out high above, below, and into the shadows of the distance. He finds that he is standing on a small ledge next to this thin chasm. Crossing the length is a plank bridge with thick ropes and wood. It is so narrow that it had less than an arm's length of swinging room to each side of the cavern. Sonic looks over the edge and sees the red glow flicker dimly from a gurgling stream of magma far below. He then looks above and sees the shadow of the bridge stretch up into a line of pure darkness obscuring the ceiling, if there even is one.

As Sonic steps onto the first plank, the ropes stretch and creak under his weight, and continue doing so with each step. Sonic walks across undeterred, holding his balance. After a short while, he coughs. The sound echoes loudly, sharply. As he walks, he notices the oddly straight geometries of the cavern walls, the polished stone edges sharply laid over each other. It isn't natural, and wondering on it, a cold tingle shoots up his spine. Just then there is a pop, followed by heavy splats! He glances down. A burst magma bubble drops back into the slow flow, hot steam rising, the burst lava spilling back down the walls below. Sonic decides to hurry along. He wonders how such an ancient, simple wooden bridge could survive above lava like this. Come to think of it, is he actually inside a volcano?

That spine tingle is suddenly flooded over with adrenaline. A high-pitched squeal dully comes through the left wall and resounds through the chasm. Sonic back-steps out of caution. At once, a thin steel pole with a razor sharp point cleanly pierces through the obsidian, right where his head just was. Right after, one by one, several more poles poke out. Then the squeal stops. Sonic stands still. There are no fractures in the wall. The poles very slowly recede back into their holes. For a few seconds, Sonic waits, hearing his breath and the distant gurgle and pops below. An awful feeling of anticipation comes to fill his gut like nausea.

Between the points the poles made, a laser shoots clean through the stone and cuts out a circle in three seconds. The circular slab slides out of the wall and tips over, slapping the bridge on its way down, causing the tightly tied bridge to start bouncing rapidly. Sonic tightly grips the ropes as it flung about. A plume of fire accepts the stone and riles the magma into increased activity as it spilled over and melted it.

But Sonic stares at the hole as an eerie, bright red light glows from within, spilling into cavern over the dimmer glow of the magma. A dome-shaped metallic head bearing eight circumferential lights emerges. It then rapidly stabs out its legs into the opposite wall and begins to draw out is full, mechanical body. Revealed, it is now silent except for a steady mains hum. It looks more sinister than anything Robotnik had designed before.

.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

The robot resembles a spider, although twice as big as Sonic. Its head is spherical with lateral notches terracing the surface in addition to the eight red lights. The head is attached to an enormous plated thorax which it lifts above itself, suspended from the walls by the eight, thin steel legs. Through the plates is a glow from its internal engine, which shines more brightly out of its glass underside facing away from Sonic.

Its attacks are:

- 'running' across the walls to ram into Sonic (this is a good chance to roll underneath and attack its engine from behind),

- stabbing at Sonic once with one leg,

- stabbing at Sonic one leg after another in a scattershot pattern,

- firing and briefly sweeping its laser from the engine towards Sonic when he is behind it,

- and moving below the bridge to attack Sonic from below with all attacks stated above but the ram. It has a 50% chance of doing this every 3 hits. If it stabs through a plank on the bridge, it will then toss it down into the lava. While the bridge is quite long, it is possible for every plank to be removed and at that point Sonic should be on the other side or else be marooned.

After eight hits against its glass-covered core, the engine will explode from within, breaking the thorax apart and scattering the head and legs around until they fall into the lava below.

.

.

[Act 2]

At the other side of the obsidian cavern is an identical entrance into another stone temple. The rooms within are shorter and less in number, but otherwise the same. At the end of the semi-symmetrical half, he enters a long and taller hallway with large columns and hanging bowls holding flames. He notices many doorways as he runs by, most of which are firmly sealed shut by doors of solid stone. Through a small square hallway he passes into a series of a new type of room which is gently lit by both flickering torches and the warm, steady glow of the square pools of lava. Lava pours into those pools in honey-like lavafalls from cut obsidian aqueducts that slope through the walls from room to room. A few of them are separated by more square hallways or vertical stairwells which lead to similar series of rooms.

While at first the temple's directed lava flow is out of his way, Sonic soon finds it obstructing his path. Although he can jump over the small lava pools, he cannot pass the larger pools or any of the lavafalls in his way. He must backtrack and take a path on a different level. Generally, the lower floors are larger but also have more room space carrying lava, and conversely the higher floors have less lava but are smaller. There are only 4 floors, however, and more than once Sonic will find each is a dead end. If he follows the lava flow backwards, he will come to a point in a room on some floor where he'll find destroyable rocks blocking the preferable flow path. Usually, these rooms have lava spilled all across the floor, and it's essentially a game of 'the floor is lava' to jump from the small islands to the target.

As Sonic goes deeper, he will find the temple sections broken up by large magma caverns. The caverns are dotted with islands of rock connected by wooden bridges at first, but later on Sonic will have to hop from island to island. There are a few stone bridges, but nearly all of them crumble into the lava just as Sonic walks on them.

He will come across a second large hallway, this one with streams of lava spiraling down each of the columns giving it a radiant glow. There are many aqueducts sloping back and forth above him as well, some of which carry lava and some which don't. Sonic should find a spot to jump onto the lowest empty one and make his way to the top. The next room is the largest magma cavern so far, and without any islands or bridges the only way across is a single empty aqueduct that Sonic will roll down in spinball form until he lands running on the other side.

Sonic re-enters the darkness of the cave tunnels, but here they are much more irregular and organic. The torches become more and more sparse as he goes forward, jumping across pits made from sharply angled slabs of rock and running through the flatter parts. The pits become increasingly difficult to leap over as the darkness wins over light in the space. At the end he finds himself by the last torch on a ledge overlooking a very large pitch-black drop of which the torch light only hints at its true depths.

He leaps in.

.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

The hole smoothly narrows as he falls before opening into a very wide, vacant magma chamber. Vents that break through the ceiling carry with them beams of bright noon sunlight thin and wide from the unseen world far aboveground. The light splashes across jagged walls and a crusty, ashy floor.

As Sonic's eyes adjust, he sees the bright, contained, artificial light from a halogen lamp above the blue-gray sheen of a large metallic door on the distant wall of the chamber. He starts walking towards it when halfway across an alarm somewhere starts blaring and a bright orange beacon next to the lamp starts rapidly spinning its light over all the others.

The door swiftly swishes open and a mechanical behemoth trots out. A single robotic eye stares out from a small head in the upper-center of the torso. The robot is a slowly moving biped with giant piston-arms loaded onto the grate frame of an unfinished pipe-and-skeleton body. It bobs up and down on its pressurized, gliding parts. It does not change its pace as it approaches Sonic.

Its attacks are:

- approaching Sonic and throwing several slow consecutive "punches" either:

-.-.- high (Sonic can duck),

-.-.- or low (Sonic can jump);

- pounding the ground to dislodge chunks of rock from the ceiling,

- and charging up both piston-arms for a double "punch" attack that blows a strong shock wave against Sonic, who must run against the wind even if he avoids the punch, or be sent hurtling into the opposite wall.

Sonic can only attack after the last attack as it loses energy to move for a moment. Within the time it takes to hit it twice, it will regain steam. If Sonic attacks it at any other time, it will block his attack with its steel arms. It can be attacked anywhere on the main body, and the impact of the hits will increasingly bend the grating and pipes until they break and burst part by part starting after 4 hits..

Once Sonic lands eight hits, all of the remaining pipes quickly start bursting off, blasting steam into the air, forcing the machine to fall to its knees and then collapse onto the ground. The hot, white plumes of vapor quickly dissipate through the vents towards the free sky far above.

.

.

**Biomech Base** [Act 1] (1/3)

_The player is greeted to the first electronic theme with rapid hi-hats and a junglist mix of kicks and snares. The tempo starts out swift and keeps a steady pace throughout. Meanwhile, cute chirps and beeps pop in and out, sometimes colluding to join in on the melody for very short periods._

_The rhythm mainly comes from a sick bass that rolls around during the verses but really pounds down during the chorus. The melody comes from some electric synths that repeat a catchy phrase over and over without much deliberation. During the bridge, they pop out of their normal behavior and crackle and buzz like arcing plasma. At the chorus, while at the command of the bass, they try to escape their usual nature into a striking harmonic blast that is quickly shut down into a meager oscillation between dissonance and consonance before crystallizing back into the all-too-familiar phrase just as the rhythm turns over._

_._

The door had since shut during the battle, but with a quick spin attack the seemingly sturdy metal breaks out of its slot and slides across the floor ahead. The floor is cement, and so are the walls and ceiling. The space is large but uninvitingly cramped with maintenance pipes, air shafts and other hardware, lit by weak electric lights. At the end of the room is an open elevator shaft. Sonic jumps down. He breaks through the ceiling of the stationary elevator car at the bottom, and from there breaks through the thin gate ahead of him.

He enters the base. The level starts in the ventilation area that lies over the base, consisting of large fans in a tall room with rectangular sheet metal shafts leading below into the base proper. Sonic breaks through the grating on one and rolls through inside until he drops into the storage warehouse below.

The large rooms are filled with containers and all sorts of metal parts and junk, including many inactive robots that can be destroyed despite not being any threat at all. In some parts he'll need to jump from the piles onto the storage racks and then from rack to rack. Although some rack levels are empty, most aren't and he'll need to jump to a higher or lower level or spindash through the junk to move on. Eventually, he'll go through a motion-sensing sliding door into a curved passage.

The passage leads to a well-lit corridor of normal height. He'll pass all sorts of active machinery in the background, along with computer terminals and small video cameras. He destroys the weak enemies in his way, running through more of the long passages that slope and bend even to hairpin turns. He starts entering rooms consisting of greenhouses monitoring various species of flora and glass cases containing trapped fauna inside who paw at the glass as Sonic runs by, unable to find a way to free them. He can reach considerable speed from the many tightly compressed curves that propel him through the small rooms and sliding doors. The simple-minded rovers start intermingling with larger assault-minded berzerker robots, but they are only a little harder to defeat. Although the path splits into many directions, they all connect and Sonic can maintain a steady speed throughout the act.

The act ends suddenly when one of the doors he passes unexpectedly slams shut and locks behind Sonic.

.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

The room is a long horizontal passage, with copious, interconnected apparatuses lining the walls, churning away. Aggressive automatons immediately onslaught him a dozen at a time. Sonic easily dashes through them all and frees their animal cores. His enemies keep coming at him in unorganized blitzes that leave enough room for him to simply hop over groups of them, and this includes the flying robots overhead. Just before he comes close to the end of the antechamber, the waves of enemies increase exponentially in number. At the very end of the room, Sonic finds the endless robots are being spawned from a large machine with a familiar roboticization capsule at its center.

If Sonic can make his way across the unending stream of robots, he can attack the machine that is producing them. However, it is covered by plentiful sheets of armor. One hit will cause a sheet of armor to very briefly puckle in before bouncing off the machine from the air pressure inside, which deflects Sonic momentum and throws him a little farther than where he jumped from. Of course he himself will bounce off of the heads of the robots as he flies back and he can approach in the same manner. As he knocks off more sheets of armor, the air pressure seems to increase as Sonic gets deflected even farther back.

As he picks apart the machine's defense, he may notice that of all the hundreds of robots that flood forth against him, not one has a mind of its own. No, not even one robot attacks Sonic. None of them can attack in any way but to run into him; their weapons have not been attached yet.

With the last few sheets of armor left, vapor steams out of the vents on the top of the machine. The air in the room gets hot and muggy. After eight hits, all of the armor is removed and the roboticization process stops. Consequently, enemies appear at a much slower rate and will eventually stop coming entirely.

Instead, a defense cannon rotates out from behind where the armor was and begins to lob energy shots at Sonic. While Sonic can get close and attack the cannon from underneath, he will be directly in front of the small gate from which the robots come out. It is safer to bounce off of the robots and land on top of it. It is also more effective if Sonic can stay in place bouncing on the cannon. After four hits, the cannon is destroyed and is detached from the machine.

There remains two sheets of metal of armor, and after two hits the core roboticization capsule is unprotected. However, it is invulnerable. Despite that, a metal lid pops off of the top of the capsule, revealing a button in the classic style of previous roboticizers (as in _Sonic 1_ and _2_). By jumping on that, the machine shuts down, its walls blow off and all of the animals yet to be roboticized inside are now freed. They run and jump and fly and dance around Sonic for a short while before scampering off to escape on their own.

.

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[Act 2]

Behind the capsule is a door which unlocks when the capsule is opened. After exiting that room, he returns to the same style of hallways and rooms as before. However, some of the room have automated turrets which turn and fire single shots at Sonic. They take one hit to destroy. Some doors also lock shut but they can be spindashed through. There are slightly more robots, too. The connecting passages curve around even more wildly than before, and some even turn straight upwards, requiring Sonic to be fast enough to run up the vertical floors to reach flat ground.

As Sonic penetrates deeper into the fortress, he finds some of the animal holding chambers have breakable glass. Unfortunately, most of the animals and plants in these areas are already completely roboticized. However, they are roboticized to resemble their previous forms and the animal-bots do not attack Sonic, lacking the weapons, energy, or even the programming to attack him. They walk and stumble about, or lay still across the dirt that used to be the only thing that the former animals could interact with to any degree. None of them notice each other or even Sonic.

When he finally reaches the bottom of the base, Sonic finds himself in an even larger storage room, with multiple floors, garages and cells containing hundreds of Robotnik's autonomous subordinates, dormant and motionless, awaiting future command. There are also piles of junk but this time they're at least more organized and out of the way. The door at the end of this room is guarded by small team of five Egg Robos.

The passage following is flat and tighter, with mechanically more reserved walls, tightly packing wires and tubes between sheets of metal, with diagonal posts vaulting down the ceiling. There is a camera every so often, and as this narrow pathway stretches on down a steep angle it becomes apparent it is leading to a high security area. The walls are only occasionally lit by small, pulsing red lights. Traversing the door at the end of this extended corridor, Sonic enters a cube-shaped room with every surface tiled with square, metal plates. Ahead of him is another door, and to the corner is a console behind a floor-to-ceiling sheet of glass. Before he could register the sights, the door slams shut behind him.

.

Sonic turns and glances at the door, which locks itself further with steel cylinders slid over each other from edge to edge. Then he hears Robotnik's cackle. He turns again, seeing Robotnik walk up from behind the glass in the corner.

"You came! I knew you would. Haha." Robotnik applauded through the glass.

"I destroyed your roboticizer and freed all of your slaves. It's over. Your forces are gone. Hand over Tails!" Sonic demans.

Robotnik was smiling. "You did me a favor by destroying them for me."

Sonic was taken aback. He hesitated a moment, then asked, "You wanted me to do that?"

"I have no need for junk. That obsolete trash takes up too much space for being unable to do anything useful at all. Besides, the weak fleshy heart of you dogs is inferior to my new power source for my superior automatons," Robotnik explained disinterestedly.

Sonic growls. He didn't want to imagine what Robotnik did to the animals after they were freed. Anger quickly boils within him.

"You're a monster... You don't deserve to live..." he finds himself saying.

Robotnik laughs. "Nothing deserves to live. Especially not you."

.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

Sonic is unable to strike Robotnik due to the sturdy, thick glass. Sonic must instead fight several defense weapons that appear from the room's walls and ceiling to keep himself alive.

There are three consecutive tiles on the ceiling and two down the wall above the entrance door which open up for a weapon to emerge behind them. ( As reference, the faces of the cube-shaped room are divided into sixteen square tiles, four by four. Robotnik's corner is snugly fit behind a square column of glass. ) The weapons appear one at a time randomly so long as the same weapon was not used up to two 'turns' before. After a weapon finishes its attack, it retreats behind the room and the tile shuts over it.

The types of weapon are:

- Weapon #1: Auto-turret (six hits)

-.-.- The auto-turret pops out of the ceiling's center tile. It attacks identically to the automated turrets so far. That is in detail, it changes its angle so it bears on Sonic, locks that angular position, fires, then unlocks and aims again. However, its shots are larger in size, slightly faster, and it fires a volley of 5 shots instead of just 1. It can be hit anywhere.

- Weapon #2: Lock-on laser (six hits)

-.-.- The lock-on laser pops out of the top wall tile. It tracks Sonic for three seconds, stops and charges for a half-second, then fires a thin laser beam for one and a half seconds. After this, it will be finished. It can be hit anywhere.

- Weapon #3: Spike ball spinner (six hits)

-.-.- The spike-ball spinner pops out of the wall tile directly above the door. It extends a short circular core via a steel pole, stopping the core in the very center of the room. Attached to the core is the iron spike ball. The core starts spinning it clockwise. At first, it is essentially rolling around the core, but as it accelerates it extends off the core by a semi-solid, visible magnetic cord which Sonic can pass through. It accelerates and extends for four seconds until it is just about skidding across the room's sides and Sonic will basically be jumping as soon as he touches the floor for a second. Before it spends another four seconds decelerating to a stop, Sonic can spin attack the core and deal it damage.

- Weapon #4: Fire pulse cannon (six hits). ( _The same weapon as used by Robotnik's submarine in Sonic 2's Oil Ocean boss fight. _)

-.-.- The fire pulse cannon pops out of the leftmost ceiling tile closest to the glass shield. It extends from its tile via its snake-like body while staying parallel to the floor. It can be hit only on the cannon part. It fires with the same pattern as before:

-.-.-.-.-.- with a high shot,

-.-.-.-.-.- a medium-low shot,

-.-.-.-.-.- a medium-high shot,

-.-.-.-.-.- and a very low shot that skids the floor, creating a wave of blue fire.

- Weapon #5: Slice laser (six hits)

-.-.- The slice laser pops out of the rightmost ceiling tile and can freely rotate 360 degrees. It is in fact the same type of laser gun as the one used by the Torch Temple Act 1 spider-bot boss. Unlike the previous weapons, it can rotate as its firing, giving it the hardest attack to avoid. To avoid it, Sonic must roll under it and then jump over it as the laser sweeps just behind him. He can wall jump to slow it down, too (_if the player knows how_). It can be hit anywhere.

.

Immediately upon destroying the last weapon, whichever two floor tiles are next to the one below Sonic's feet will quickly slide open, letting metal cuffs burst out, turn, grasp his ankles and clamp tightly. The two restraint contraptions then slide back to the entrance door, causing Sonic to yelp from the sharp pain threatening to break his ankles. The cuffs flip to the side, throwing down his balance. He just barely catches the end of his fall with his arms, only to feel the cuffs slap to the floor themselves and lock in place. Although in pain, he pushes himself to his knees and tries to turn to see his bonds. He just barely grabs them, unable to feel around them completely. Robotnik cackles again.

He jeers, "Predictable. Without your legs, you are defeated. Oh, but you can spindash out of it! Do it. Try it now. Break your own legs, send the stumps' blood slapping against the walls! Ahahahaha!"

Sonic frankly admits to himself he's scared and tries to quickly think of a way to escape, but he can only think of moving his body around and breaking the cuffs with his hands. He again twists his back and reaches for them, but his ankles scream with fiery pain.

The glass shield slides up into the ceiling. Robotnik walks out from behind the console with a handgun.

"The game is over."

As his black suit shoes clack against the floor, he polishes the gun with a handkerchief. He comes to stand above Sonic. He outstretches his arm and puts the barrel against the front of Sonic's head.

"You are just another fragile, weak creature like the helpless excuses for matter you thought you freed. You are just another number I throw into my calculations and forget about."

Sonic is wrought with intense fear. There is nothing he can do. He doesn't try to rotate his feet or twist his body or fling his arms or hide his head. He stares at the cold, white floor. It's so cold. The cold, artificial air prickling his skin, seeping within. His mind was paralyzed. Every slice of time stood on the edge of oblivion. But he didn't think of time. He didn't think at all.

Robotnik pushes the cold metal against the top of his forehead, pushing his head up, forcing Sonic's eyes to see him. He didn't look away, but only stared wide-eyed.

"Every one of my failures can be turned around by just shooting one single bullet into your little hedgehog brain."

Sonic is silent. He realizes in this moment, he can only be where he is and stare back. Over his fear he breathes out the fire of his adrenaline-charged pumping heart. The only muscle he can move is his brow, twitching it against the cascade of terror, the certainty of death. He stares over the barrel at Robotnik's darkly bespectacled eyes. Robotnik looks back at him. His moustache twitches.

For a moment, neither of them move.

Robotnik raises the arm and slaps Sonic across the face with the hard pistol. Sonic's torso is sent leaning over his side, the pain then stunning him, shooting up his bound ankles, forcing him to force his spine and weight back upright. Then he is met by a wave of throbbing pain from his cheek and jaw. Something wet, warm, trickles down his chin.

Robotnik walks back to the console. "Killing you would be efficient... but that's not the plan. No, you will suffer to a satisfactory level soon enough..."

He looks at the gun for a moment. "You could not comprehend how badly I want to kill you, right now."

He puts the gun away and leans over the console, supporting himself with extended arms. "I want you to die. You **need** to **DIE**."

He turns his head up. The two dark lens framed across his eyes seemed to absorb the light around them. They were hungry, but they were nothing but pits of darkness. Robotnik's arms shake for a brief moment, then stop. "It is fine. You will die. You will die."

Sonic feels the cold grip of fear loosen reluctantly. But then he felt again the flame of hostility that refused to be intimidated. Without thinking why, he decides he must keep his ground even if it's on his knees. "You're a coward," he spat out.

Robotnik twitches with anger. "I am disgusted by your chirpy little voice... but it will sound sweet screaming in agony. You will see the world curl over and wither into dust by my command. You will be there from the first to the last moment and at the end all you will know is my invincible willpower and intelligence. Then... then I will slowly torture you, slowly, slowly... and you will beg for me to kill you. I will refuse, beating you at my leisure. Until I'm bored... then I'll leave you to die... alone, helpless, in the new world of Robotnikland..."

Sonic actually finds it in him to laugh. "You're a child, Robotnik."

Robotnik violently slams the console, the sound reverberating across the small room. "_**Enough**_! See for yourself!"

He seemed to have pressed a button with his fist, as while he was shouting, a large, thin monitor began descending from the very edge of the tiled ceiling. He presses another, and an image of the Death Egg flashes on the screen, slowly sinking in a sea of clouds while falling apart in tiny pieces.

"It's falling!" Sonic cried.

Robotnik slams the console again, grabbing Sonic's attention. "Listen carefully, you mindless leech. I am letting it fall. It is nonoperational, so I want it destroyed, and a large swath of Mobius too. This is my 'Apocalypse'. Its engine is still powering the trajectory exhausts, which is stabilizing its descent. Very soon the engine shall run out of fuel and it will fall from its current position in the stratopause."

Sonic quickly realizes something and opens his mouth to voice it.

"Shut up and listen!" Robotnik barges in. "If you want to save Mobius from an impact explosion that will tear apart a large chunk of its fragile surface, you will destroy the entire thing within 45 minutes!"

"You madman, stop it yourself! Do you want to die, too?!" Sonic shouted. He imagines himself punching Robotnik's face into the wall, but the metal cuffs bind him tightly to reality.

"Fool, I let it fall. I want it to crash. It would be beautiful, but there is no consequence either way. Small things like this mean nothing to me." Robotnik then turned and walked to the door.

He walks through and it shuts.

"Robotnik! Robotnik, you coward! You fucking coward, aaaarrggh!" Sonic howls. "Damn it, this is insane! How can I move if-" He pulls his legs against the restraints and screams in frustration.

Suddenly, the cuffs release and he falls forward again. Surprised for a split-second, Sonic quickly gains his senses, throws his foot forward and catches himself, while wincing from the pain. He climbs on his other foot and painfully walks step by step to the door.

He enters another long corridor, but this one is lined with dozens of doors on both sides, all locked. He forces himself to start running, but Robotnik is nowhere to be seen. He tries to calm down and distract himself from the pain and thinks.

"I didn't see Tails... I really hope he's not behind one of these doors... Maybe... he sent him farther away..."

He reaches the door at the end which opens up to reveal a small vertical tube that reaches up all the way to the surface far above. He looks up at that distant, miniscule circle of light hovers in shadow barely lit by circles of tiny electric lights. Sonic jumps onto the opposing wall and then jumps off that to the other side even higher. He speeds up the wall-jumps until he builds enough momentum to run up the walls themselves. His pain fading away, he focuses on the light slowly enlarging ahead of him. To get that circle closer, faster, he runs faster, faster, and faster. Coming to the opening, he rolls into a spinball and lets his inertia carry him straight up. The warm light splashes all over him and the blowing wind swam into his lungs with the smell and feel of natural freshness free and broad.

.

.

**Falling Frenzy** [Act 1] (1/4)

_There is a time limit of about 44 minutes that will last from Falling Frenzy to the end of the next stage, DeadEgg. It is displayed as a timer underneath the ring count. If the time limit runs out at any time before then, there will be a cutscene showing the Death Egg's thrusters die out, the Death Egg rapidly accelerating towards the surface, and then crashing into it, causing an explosion and tidal wave of earth that wipes out a gigantic portion of Mobius, killing Sonic as well._

_This Act has a recommended time clear of 6 minutes. Each act and each boss has a recommended time clear of 6 minutes and 4 minutes respectively, except for Falling Frenzy Act 2 which has a time clear of 8 minutes. To warn the player for spending more time than the recommended time clear for the currently played Act or Boss, the timer will change color. _

_After the time clear of 4, 6, or 8 minutes (depending on the level as mentioned), the timer changes to orange for the next 1 minute if it's an act or for the next 2 minutes if it's a boss. _

_After that, the timer turns red. The timer will stay orange or red unless the player can make up the lost time by the end of the next Act or Boss. _

_However, the timer will always be orange from "5:00" to "2:01" and red from "2:00" to "0:21". At "0:20", the timer moves to the top-center of the screen in twice the font size. At "0:05", the timer is thrice the original font size and each second ("0:05", "0:04", etc.) will rapidly change colors from white to orange to red to black from the start to the end of that particular second._

_If the timer runs out, the player normally restarts the act after the cutscene. As the player may get stuck with an unbeatable time limit if there is not enough time remaining to clear the remaining levels, there are exceptions. The player will either: _

_- restart on the first act of DeadEgg if there is less than a total of 4 minutes for the following acts and 3 minutes for the boss, _

_- or restart on the first act of Falling Frenzy if there is less than 20 minutes by the time the player reaches DeadEgg._

_The effect of this time limit is to challenge the player to become competent with Sonic's abilities if the player's skill has been at a novice level so far. More abstractly, it is a threshold to pass so the player can keep pace with this game's high difficulty curve._

_._

_Chords quickly build up and then explode into the melody just as Sonic exits the pipe. The harmony fades as a rapid beat comes down. The rhythm remains the focus while the lead suddenly switches to a falling melody. It gives the impression of a lone hero fighting desperate odds._

_._

Sonic bursts out of the end of the pipe with a powerful leap, sending him flying high into the vast, cloudy sky. He spins through the wide blankets of cloud the color of gentle flames from the evening sun. Just as gravity catches up and he's about to reverse direction, he softly lands and rolls across a floating platform in mid-air.

_The color of essentially everything in the level will change according to the colors of the sunset._

The sun is slipping towards the horizon's indefiniteness. The platform is made of a lightweight but durable chrome-coated metal reflecting the beautiful vista around him. Occasionally interrupting the shiny surface is a transparent material revealing the thin, ultra-lightweight skeletal structures keeping the platforms together. At the curved edge of every platform and at long, even intervals within them are small mechanical devices holding dimly glowing blue orbs, presumably the mechanism that kept them still in the air. Handrails lined with smoothly pulsating colored halogen lights point in the direction that leads up. As Sonic looks around him, he sees bright, floating guiding lights pulsating towards long runways floating at different altitudes, some with Robotnik's ships docked, locked down, and covered with wind shields. He guesses it is an air base.

But after quickly glancing around, Sonic's attention stays on the distant roar of thrusters and gushing wind, coming beyond the level of clouds still higher above him. He starts moving down the path.

While there are no dead ends, the platforms float in different islands, separated from each other horizontally and vertically by countless gaps (necessary to provide unobstructed passage of the high-altitude winds). The platforms themselves are usually quite long and mostly flat with a few small slopes. Only a few platforms are moving, and these ones have a simple back-and-forth path. At the edges of the horizontal layers of platforms are complexes which have the quarter-pipes and steps necessary to ascend. As Sonic climbs higher, he will have more of the lower platforms to fall upon if he does fall. He will also come across a runway every other 'floor'.

About halfway through, Sonic will find himself unable to reach the higher floor of a platform-complex. The lights pulsate around a platform's edge and up a vertical one. While it seems to be a trick, actually the platforms have a subtle pseudo-gravitational effect which will keep Sonic's feet running across it so long as he goes fast enough. Although, he will simply fall off flat non-curved edges. In any case, from that point on Sonic will find himself running up, down, and upside-down following the path, which will split into multiple directions but still lead upwards. As he dashes and curves through the air, he may even find himself on the opposite side of a platform he was on earlier. However, he must be wary not to fall off straight edges, and that if he jumps on the underside of a platform he will surely fall downwards. If he must cross a platform's gap on its underside and cannot reach the topside, he should instead build speed and spindash across the gap, if it is small enough to do so safely.

This act ends when Sonic reaches the final, highest runway, although there are more platforms still above.

.

A very strong air current ominously pushes the clouds down into the air base. All of the platforms float heedlessly to the wind as humongous waves of cloud rush away. Revealing itself behind all the fluffy clouds is an immense, violent, gnashing dark storm. Yet pushing away even this growing maelstrom comes the true danger, every so often seen through the small holes torn out from the clouds. The finely engineered mechanical texture of that familiar gargantuan sphere of destruction slowly descends ever closer, bearing the power of imminent catastrophe.

.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

_There should be 38 minutes remaining. This Boss's recommended time clear is 4 minutes._

Sonic must not stop here and now but he does. The Egg Hunter stands before him. As they stand, the storm arrives. High winds tear across the platform and lightning begins its endless crackling through the dense plumes of dark cloud. It becomes difficult to see or hear, let alone keep still. Yet they stand.

A bolt strikes nearby, lighting up a figure Sonic did not see before standing behind Egg Hunter. He immediately recognizes the silhouette as Silver Sonic, but in the flashes of light he sees it is in some disrepair. Without a single sound, Egg Hunter commands Silver Sonic to attack and promptly thereafter jumps off of the edge of the runway and blasts its rockets at full power downwards away from the storm. After a few seconds, its jetpack's flames disappear into the tempest.

.

The runway has just enough length for some moderate speed and space. Sonic can also uninterruptedly run to its underside from both edges, too.

Silver Sonic has all of his attacks from his battle on the _Death Egg_ in _Sonic 2_:

- he can dash or spindash across the battlefield,

- he can dash through the air in a spinball,

- he can hover in the air as a spinball for a brief moment and then dash across the air while ejecting spikes in eight directions,

- and he can bounce across the ground in a spinball. Actually, he can now bounce several times.

He has twice as much range with all of these familiar attacks due to the relatively larger size of the battlefield.

He also has three new attacks:

- shooting a single laser beam from his eyes (Sonic can jump or duck to avoid it),

- dashing with high speed to deliver a rocket-thrusted punch,

- and rapid-firing shots from his finger-cannons.

Instead of attacking in a preset pattern like before, he tries to target Sonic wherever he is with whichever attack will reach, so long as it's not a repeat. The confusing environment and high winds do interfere with his targeting, but they affect Sonic just as badly. The winds can be used to his advantage, however, by using them to accelerate faster without worry of flying off the edge. However, the wind changes directions somewhat often.

After sixteen hits, Silver Sonic falls again.

.

.

[Act 2]

_There should be 34 minutes remaining. __However, this Act has the longest recommended time clear of 8 minutes._ The player should judge the distance from the goal as the timer constantly ticks down. This is doable as the player will always be able to tell how far Sonic is from the current goal. For this level, it will be how close Sonic is to the surface of the Death Egg, which will be completely visible in this Act. 

_This level introduces wall-jumping in the level design (it was always doable). To wall-jump, Sonic must jump into a vertical or nearly vertical wall, where he will stop on the spot, leaning against it. He must then jump again, although if he jumps in the opposite direction he will go higher and farther by pushing against the wall. If he doesn't jump on the wall, he'll just slide down it._

_._

_The BGM is similar to the last Act's theme, however the beat trades its speed for intensity and the melody likewise follows suit, with a few chaotic tangents._

_. _

The storm dissipates as quickly as it arose. The dark clouds brighten from the sun's blood-red rays before falling below and spreading away. The strong winds remain, but this time universally blow straight down. For above Sonic now is nothing but clear sky and the massive surface of the Death Egg pushing down on the air. Looking up, he sees its face, in the likeness of Robotnik, cracked and filled with holes, falling apart piece by tiny piece. The gargantuan and complicated inner structure within it is revealed by the sun's light creeping into all the fractures and gaps of Robotnik's former ultimate weapon. The exhaust released from its many engines roar loud enough to be an omnipresent, body-shaking hum.

Sonic knew that as soon as that hum quits, it would all be over.

A rectangular prism of five consecutive floors connected by a single pillar falls before him. Farther in the distance all around and above him he sees that the sky is littered with falling material flaking off of the decaying space station. Rivers of material continually collapse and fall out. He notices that he is below one such strand of junk that coincidentally is coming out from where the tear duct of the left eye would be. He tilts his head back as far as he could, but there is only the Death Egg. The sides of its massive diameter descend into shadow behind the reach of the ending day.

.

Sonic has no way to reach it but to ascend using the falling detritus. And so he leaps off of the runway to a group of falling pieces of floor. From one he jumps to another, and then to another, taking care to keep pace so that he does not lose more height than he gains. These parts consist of varying shapes that test his quick judgments. Many are simple and flat, but there are also irregular shapes and composite structures requiring their own bouts of platforming to travel through. The parts may be falling straight down, right-side up, or they may be spinning in place and even moving laterally in some direction. Some even end up colliding with other pieces mid-air, altering both of their spins and directions. Sonic should take care to note any immediate collisions, especially if he is on the piece in question so as not to lose stability or even get crushed.

He lands on a small platform after the first series of jumping obstacles. Although he catches his breath, looking up he sees the rest of the floating air base is rather sparse and disconnected, probably from the falling junk crashing through it beforehand. But the string of stuff has ended and so Sonic looks for and finds another string falling by a platform parallel to his but some distance away. Fortunately, the junk is everywhere and he takes a horizontal route to his target.

There, he again jumps up through the junk until he reaches the top of the string. He spots another string, but with no platform near it he has to keep on crossing the falling parts to make it there. At the top of that string, he finds himself marooned until he spots a stable platform below but some distance away. Taking his chances, he leaps off and lands on it.

As he does, another large part of the Death Egg whooshes by him. He again looks up and sees the small parts crumbling off has led to the larger pieces losing support and crumbling off. Taking their size to his advantage, Sonic now uses the smaller, now more isolated pieces as bridges between the larger ones which have more vertical range. Some of these are so large that Sonic can even run inside them. However, he never rests as even these large ones can be spinning, upsetting his ability to jump out from their top openings. And again, even a few of these large ones crash into each other, which is particularly dangerous as the impacts can split them apart.

After a while he finds another floating platform, which he can choose to ignore if he doesn't need the breather. Either way, at this point the sun is almost gone, and the red light grays out as the blue darkness of dusk arises from the other horizon. He can no longer make out the sky above him, and barely even the edges of the vast, split face of the Death Egg glaring down at him, partly destroyed, like the approaching skull of Death. The greater part of its surface area is hauntingly falling back into shadow, except for a number of circles of flickering red light coming from the thrusters. Sonic recalls the time limit and presses on.

The path is increasingly difficult as the downward winds return to the intensity of the thunderstorm's, and exceed it. Consequently, his vertical reach is slightly diminished and the junk falls slightly faster than before. He comes to find wall-jumping as more successful in ascent than normal jumping, and starts trying to connect each wall-jump with the next to maintain momentum. It is hard, and with every mistake he finds himself dangerously losing a lot of height. Should he fall down far enough, he can find his way back to the more numerous air base platforms below, and if not those then at least the runway. While this keeps him safe from falling to his death, it is an attack on the time limit which is the other side of death.

The remaining platforms of the air-base are small, few, and far in between. But he rests on them anyway, as there are now gaps between the falling pieces as well. Impatiently he waits out for more strings of junk to cross, and gets frustrated as he notices some of them lead to dead ends in the sky, which he has no intention of getting caught in. It frustrates him all the more when he sees a platform he was aiming for being crashed into by junk and sent falling with the rest. Fortunately, this is not often due to their scarcity and small sizes.

Soon he is relieved to find he no longer needs to look up to see the Death Egg. Its surface is quite visible by just looking to his sides. Sonic is tempted to stay still and let it come to him, but he reminds himself he must explore the monster himself, and somehow find a way to destroy it from within on top of that!

And so he braves the final reach of space between him and the surface. It is not easy. Just under the immense din of the thrusters is the howl of the wind, as he has reached the region where it is most intense. His jump is significantly weakened here, which would have made it impossible to cross the large swaths of air between the scattered junk below. Here, though, the strong wind flattens the junk into [relatively] tightly-packed layers. The pieces are not spinning, and even though most of them are slammed into each other, the uniform wind keeps them [relatively] stationary. All Sonic has to do is run as fast as he can, wall-jump or jump onto higher layers whenever he spots an opening, and just keep moving.

By some bizarre miracle, on the other side of the compact layers of junk is a complete lack of wind. Parts are plentiful and fall at their normal rate. The only challenge is the lack of strings; he must make strong leaps from piece to piece which means he must concentrate the most right here. After that brief trial, he sees with incredulity and relief a floating runway, albeit a lot thinner than the ones below.

_If_ _Sonic reaches this point with less than 24 minutes remaining, the runway will be crushed into the Death Egg and he must continue using the falling junk_.

At the end of the runway is a sharply angled ramp. Across its length is a still-moving conveyor belt moving quite fast. Without a pause he runs down its length, passing his barefoot full speed before dashing up the ramp and jumping off at the very end. He slices through the air and for a few joyful seconds it is nothing but ascent! He draws very close to the Death Egg, able to see the details on its surface... but it's not enough! He's still too far... he underestimated how close he'd get because of how large it really is up-close!

Without warning or event, Sonic suddenly feels gravity disappear from below and finds his flying speed somehow accelerate upwards!

In just a few more seconds, he smashes into the metal surface and untucks, instinctively running with his remaining horizontal speed. It is then he realizes and remembers that the Death Egg has an artificial gravitational field! (While deactivated when it was lifting from _Launch Base Zone Act 2_ in _Sonic 3_, it had to have its own gravity for Sonic to move as freely as he did in _Sonic 2_ and _Sonic & Knuckles_.)

_The camera will rotate at a non-dizzying, not-too-slow pace to make Sonic appear right-side up. The controls are locked as it does so because as the player holds right while Sonic is actually moving left now, the sudden stop and direction change would be very confusing._

_Despite this, once the player regains the controls, the player can certainly change directions voluntarily! In fact, after a 15 second run to the right from where Sonic lands is one of the Death Egg's thrusters. This one is dead, however, and the immediate area is a mess of steel girders and chunks of metal, but if Sonic makes his way over and into the thruster, he'll find it's another entrance inside. The thruster ends abruptly in an even larger mess of junk, where it seems an explosion ripped through the thruster pipe, blocking off the fuel pipe and any other way out. But as soon as Sonic steps out of the pipe, he'll find a White Emerald shard! Finding this will end the Act and skip the Act 2 Boss, bringing Sonic directly to DeadEgg Act 1 at a position not too far from the 'normal' entrance. A first-time player doesn't need to worry about the White Emerald, however, and can ignore this secret for now._

The world enters twilight as the dying sun plunges upwards into the liquid horizon. It's surreal to see Blue Hill and the jungle and mountain of Torch Temple on the other side of the clouds on the ceiling-like planetary surface above, it too dipping into darkness. Looking across the massive but mostly featureless metallic landscape, time seems to slow down. Shadows lengthen out from the nose and broken glass-moustache of the face, stretching out in stripes from the thin and thick grooves and protrusions of the surface itself. The working thrusters seem like the last torches of hope as chunks of the new ground crack, dislodge in steps and slip out, flying straight up into the sky.

While Sonic runs across the surface looking for an entrance, he sees far in the distance a thin vertical shape. Closer, he sees it as the figure of a person. Even closer, it starts to look more and more like him, himself. Like this was all an illusion about to crack when he runs into the great mirror standing before him. But there is no mirror. Only that individual stands before him, with bright electric eyes staring mercilessly back at him.

.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

_If all went well, there should be 26 minutes remaining. This Boss's recommended time clear is 4 minutes._

_For this fight, Sonic is always running to the left at a set speed and the screen is not centered on Sonic. Thus the player can move Sonic around up to the edges of the screen. If the player presses down, Sonic will roll into a spinball which will slow down until he runs into the right edge of the screen, where he will stay before automatically untucking after a second. If the player tries to spindash, pressing down will make Sonic roll and pressing Action will make Sonic jump from his roll. So, Sonic can't spindash during this fight._

Running on the ruined surface of the Death Egg, Sonic runs into Silver Sonic MKII (from _Sonic & Knuckles)_, who immediately uses his ankle boosters to propel itself backwards while constantly facing Sonic. As it moves around Sonic while facing him, it will always be moving forward. This is a high-speed version of the previous Silver Sonic fight from Act 1. As they are moving, Sonic has much more trouble recovering rings. Once a ring bounces once, it will drastically slow down and fall behind, out of reach. Moreover, Silver Sonic MKII actually tries to take Sonic's dropped rings and prevent Sonic from catching any rings that pass by!

Mark II has the same attacks, except:

- he cannot eject spikes,

- and he cannot use the rocket punch.

Instead, he has a few new attacks:

- he dashes straight across the ground to behind (or in front of) Sonic, without rolling into a spinball (as in the _Sky Sanctuary Act 1 _fight in S&K).

- he pulls back his fist, targets Sonic, and dashes to his current position to throw a punch. If Sonic jumps straight up or away, he will jump and uppercut Sonic, the knockback of which will make Sonic vulnerable when he recovers.

- if he has 8, 16, or 24 rings, he will jump into the air and launch out an expanding circle of inert ring projectiles in 1, 2, or 3 waves, with a ring flying in each of all 8 directions (like Mark I's spike attack). Alternating waves change the angle to fill the gap of the last wave. (This is an improvement on the attack used in the _Sky Sanctuary Act 2_ fight in S&K).

Sixteen hits break him, causing his thrusters to fail. He turns around and tries to run like Sonic, but after 5 steps his legs give, he trips and falls flat onto the ground, breaking out in electric arcs as he is left behind.

Shortly after, Sonic comes to the end of the flat expanse and jumps into a giant fissure opening up Robotnik's death mask like a cracked egg.

.

.

**DeadEgg** [Act 1] (1/5)

_There should be 22 minutes remaining. The recommended time clear is 6 minutes. _

_____There are no enemies in this Act._

_The music for this act will be a remix of the Death Egg BGM in Sonic 2, with the various instruments composed of even more highly synthetic sound effects, with long delays and an echo that chill the spirit of the original. It should invoke a lonely, melancholic atmosphere._

_._

___While the inside is virtually indistinguishable at first, as the moon rises, the moonlight starts to shine through the holes and fissures in the ceiling, revealing more of the mechanical ruins than is visible at first._

Sonic enters the Death Egg for the final time. He falls in the narrow ray of light shining down into the clouds of billowing dust. He lands on a steel girder sticking far out of where it should be, and runs down it.

Around him is a large hollow space filled with a deep darkness. At the edges of the space are a few structurally sound walls lit up by all sorts of lights as was normal before, but most of the walls are dark and broken apart. Within the space, connected to others by various holes everywhere, are jagged hills of dilapidated material lying against the walls and floor or sticking out in clumps from the thick section that made the ceiling/surface.

While the gravity keeps most of the junk settled towards the core, on the ceiling there is constant shifting and displacement. Finally the constant sound of the rocketing thrusters is quiet from within, instead replaced by the cracks of large electric arcs and the booms of small explosions busting randomly across the ceiling. In some parts, this seemingly disrupts the local gravity which allows pieces tiny, small and large to shift weight, crack and fall upwards towards the benighted surface of Mobius.

.

This level consists of two types of areas. The first type is the one Sonic starts in: humongous cavernous expanses filled with collapsed and still-collapsing material that used to form large, connected zones of some function or another. There are hills of random junk to climb up and run down. There are girders, pylons and pipes sticking out into the air by their lonesome or connected together in the skeleton of the supporting infrastructure. These parts are mainly an exercise in platforming, although there are a few threats in the form of rows of jagged edges from junk (effectively spikes), intermittent electric arcing, burning pools of fuel, and the occasional random explosion.

The gravity in these areas is not always functioning correctly, and Sonic might find himself pulled towards some wall or another, or even back down to Mobius, instead of towards the core. Because of this, the path to the core is not a direct one. He may find himself at the edge of an uncrossable hole or fissure. Although he could backtrack for a safer route, time is of the essence. At least twice he will need to jump and fall back outside the Death Egg, to land on slabs of steel barely hanging on below. From there, if he is lucky he may find horizontal hanging-ladders (like the ones from _Flying Battery_ in _Sonic & Knuckles_). It is more likely he'll have to traverse various types of pieces suspended from the surface, many of which will start detaching as soon as he lands on them. He might even have to once again cross falling pieces while outside. While he has no intention of falling off, should it happen he will return to _Falling Frenzy_... just with less time to spare.

The second type of area exists within the stable walls and floors, consisting of very long, straight corridors and narrow shafts to either fall down or wall jump up, recalling the style of the Death Egg from _Sonic 2_ and _Sonic & Knuckles_. Some parts of these area are lit up and look identical to places Sonic has been in times past, with functioning motion-sensing doors, projection-bridges, and electric corridors with crossing conveyor-platforms. Most, however, are draped in deep shadow except for dim, flickering emergency lights, and are filled with destroyable debris (including broken robots) and holes leading back to the first type of area.

He moves between the first and second types a few times before finding a long path through the second type that leads him through the thick 'floor' to the other side, where the core is.

.

Past the maze of the outer edges, Sonic will enter the hollow inner sphere lit up by the almost-completely intact core cylinder connected to the two poles of the sphere. The gravity is normal to Mobius here, so Sonic can't simply fall down to the core. While this inner space is more clear of detritus due to the thick wall separating it from the outer sphere, the bottom is densely packed with scrap and large pools of burning fuel. Small sections of the core itself seem broken, pinched in somehow, casting wide blocks of shadow against the inner sphere's wall. As for the wall itself which Sonic emerges from, from this side Sonic sees it was actually much thicker as is still visible in some parts. But large portions of it are melted and burnt black, leaving nothing but the stress-bearing structures beneath stretching out to the core.

Sonic now starts exploring this part. He runs across, wall-jumps up, and falls down the spaces between the orthogonal-and-diagonal meshes of girders. He spindashes into a few pipes that scoot him along more quickly. Although he finds it even more maze-like than the area before, the spaces are much tighter and comparatively, this part doesn't last very long. There is a wide gap at the edge, and while he may now think it smarter to take the risk and jump, the bottom of this inner sphere is deadly no matter where he lands.

Instead, he must keep on exploring the girders until he finds a way into an intact part of the wall on its outer edge. The area within such a part is similar to the aforementioned second type of area in style, but the corridors are instead rather short and connect to medium-sized rooms with glass windows and computer consoles. At the end of this brief area is an antechamber with a monitor that lights up when Sonic enters and a locked door that would open into the same gap that stopped him just earlier. The monitor displays, "Arrival in 10 seconds" and counts down. Sonic has to wait. But when it's time, the door opens as a floating, open-air shuttle bus approaches and stops on-level with the floor. Once Sonic steps on it, the door shuts behind him and the shuttle flies at a moderate pace towards the core. Instead of heading straight, it approaches in a curve, turning around the core.

While it does this, Sonic will start to see in the background a distant hole in the top part of the inner sphere, and a hole in the same position in the outer sphere even higher above. As the shuttle moves around the core, he notices pieces of a familiar, bright red, narrow girder sticking far out of the general mess below. Looking at it, he then immediately notices a large humanoid shape sticking out of the mess. It is none other than the destroyed remains of Robotnik's Death Egg Suit, or "Big Finger" (from _Sonic & Knuckles_).

The shuttle connects to a small building, and Sonic again walks through the door and antechamber into another room with tall glass windows. Then the Act ends.

.

.

[Act 2]

_There should be 16 minutes left. The recommended time clear is 6 minutes. __There is still a significant portion of the time limit left, which should leave the player to believe that there is more than just this act left. With the last Act's lack of a boss or any enemies, the player may be suspicious of what lies ahead. But there is no time for hesitation. The time limit has become the true enemy._

_______There are no enemies in this act, either._

_The music for this act will be a remix of the Death Egg BGM in Sonic & Knuckles, with a higher tempo and endless, droning repetition with distant electric howls._

_._

For a moment, Sonic wonders why he hasn't seen any enemies at all, but quickly decides the threat of the Death Egg crashing is enough for Robotnik to throw at him. He runs out of the room.

He finds himself on a complex of catwalks leading to and from a few cylindrical towers horizontally suspended from the core by long, sturdy beams. The catwalks go on for some distance before connecting to lower or higher levels of catwalks with simple diagonal slopes. Sonic simply follows the path. On occasion he enters the towers to find the inside only has a sloped path spiralling around a still buzzing auxiliary generator, before exiting out back to more catwalks. In short time he reaches the wall of the core cylinder, which again is much larger up close than it seemed from a distance. He enters it through a large sliding double-door.

The area inside is the standard narrow-corridor-and-shaft design. This time, the walls are no longer just bare metal and electronics; they now have a sleeker, lustrous design, with thin but bright lighting lining the bottom and top edges. The path branches often but all lead deeper inside. There are also a few small computers rooms between the corridors, but most of the screens are inactive or display static. Only a rare few are active but they only show indecipherable technical information and graphs.

He finally comes to a large corridor with signs signifying the imminent inner core. The floor is lined with robots, but they are all deactivated and not even broken in any way. The blast door at the end doesn't open for him, but 4 hits breaks it open. He rushes inside.

The inner core of the Death Egg is not an industrial or technological area. On first glance it is a simple, almost comfortingly normal interior space meant for anyone to walk through freely. Sonic stops. The shock of what he sees reverberates from his eyes into his mind, shaking up all of his memories, sending a chill vibrating down his spine, through his flesh and across his skin.

.

Here, he finds Robotnik's secret temple in worship of himself, in the heart of his gigantic, world-destroying battle station crumbling apart in the shadow of the sun.

It remained perfectly intact.

There are statues of Robotnik in various heroic poses, pointing towards the sky, pointing towards himself, his hands open into the air, while standing on mountains of the pieces of slaughtered animals large and small. Lining the walls are elaborate drawings and lionizing paintings, mechanically made, depicting all of his great works: the Scrap Brain factory complex, the Sky Base zeppelin, the Oil Ocean, Metropolis, Wing Fortress. Gimmick Mountain, Scrambled Egg, the Mean Bean Machine, Electric Egg, the Veg-O-Fortress, and of course the Death Egg. And countless smaller images of roboticized Mobians, of great swaths of polluted, destroyed earth, of Mobian homes and villages on fire and in ruins, of Mobians bloody and broken and...

The walls they sit on are designed to match his own likeness. One style is the "W" shape of his yellow cape over a large red segment for the shirt, with a proportionally shorter black segment below as his pants with an overlaid series of white dome lights representing his buttons. There was also another color scheme: of peach, with a series of black circles above, a pink sinusoid waving between below, and orange zig-zag wings below that, all exaggeratedly resembling the shades of his forehead, glasses, nose, and moustache.

Sonic comes to a long, dimly lit passageway with a glass wall on one side, behind which is a running demonstration of the roboticization process.

- In the first window, plush puppets are dragged out of their niches by badniks. A few are dragged individually, pierced by badnik pincers or stingers. Most flee from their homes en masse, their environment destroyed by fire and bulldozing, and they run into open cages.

- In the second window, they are transported to a roboticization capsule and crammed inside.

- The third window reveals, in the case of a single doll, the mechanical process which locked it into a single position by a body-tight metal wrap crushing and ripping the soft plush. It is then placed inside the shell of a badnik by a crudely painted factory.

- The fourth window shows an army of badniks awaiting the command of another Robotnik statue, motionless in pose, lit from behind by an oddly natural light. Behind the crowd, unnoticed, are twitching and broken badniks flailing against the chains restraining them to a line of posts. A few of the badniks are opened from the side, showing the plush animal inside, thrashing about in the tiny space inside. They uncannily opened their mouths like puppets as a pre-recording of actual Mobians screamed through a speaker... and then they are shot by a line of badniks opposite them, at the back edge of the small army. The shot badniks stop moving, the posts draw into the floor, and are quickly replaced by more. As Sonic passes the Robotnik statue, unable to draw his eyes away, he sees behind him the fifth window.

- The fifth window is a large technical diagram depicting the movement of energy to Robotnik's factories. And the source was an incinerator. A conveyor belt carries plush animals, with vividly depicted and unique serious injuries, strapped down with chains, into the incinerator. And the smoke blows the turbine, which works the generator...

The circus has just begun. After that tour, Sonic finds himself in a zoo of every badnik he's ever fought. They are real. Behind clear windows, they meander about lazily until they see Sonic. They stop. They watch him silently. In a burst of anger he runs up and spin attacks a window, and it bounces him back. He is stunned. They watch him without moving. He whips around, seeing their beady electronic eyes, and he hears the same Mobian scream from the previous room. He slams shut his eyes and throws his legs down to get out of here. There are many badniks and the zoo is long. He looks, looks up, to see how far the exit is, but the room only turns a corner, and in the corner of his eyes he sees them stare. All of their glass eyes stare at him without judgment and without emotion, and they stare directly at Sonic, at his face, at his eyes. As the path between the terrariums and aquariums curves around, Sonic cannot keep his gaze downward, hidden. At every turn he is forced to look back at them. Upon seeing the exit, he makes way for it immediately.

He comes into a wider area, completely dark except for the lamps shining on a series of figures lining the walls. He tries to look and he sees the inactive recreations of every sub-boss he's every fought, in uncovered alcoves with walls painted from the environment Sonic fought each one in. There are signs with information for each one, complete with full schematics and Robotnik's original intention for the creation. Upon seeing another double-door ahead he heads straight for it. After a long run, he manages to reach it, this shut door. Just as he pushes on the bar on this locked shut door, he suddenly hears a torrent of whirrs and hums surge up from behind him. He turns around. The lights on each machine flood the darkness with color. They rotate their parts, their drills and cannons. Some have already launched their engines and charge at Sonic all together.

Sonic, knowing he has no time to waste, spin dashes through the door and keeps running. And he keeps running. The new room is an incredibly long yet thin corridor. There are tiny lights on the floor that barely light the walls up to Sonic's height. The walls narrow in very slowly, to exactly the length from one elbow to another. The air is stale, still, and smells of oil. Above, even just above his head, there is only darkness, the ceiling out of sight. He keeps running, through the hallway, this seemingly endless hallway, and he hears something heavy give way. And then a loud screech, which does not stop. Sonic tries to ignore it, but it only gets louder. It sounds like sharp metal slowly scraping against more metal.

As he finally catches a glimpse of the sliver of light from the door far ahead, he sees it catch off something reflective hanging. He runs past it, but within a few seconds he sees more and more blips of the dim light. It is dreamlike, like slowly descending flakes of snow appearing out of thin air. He looks up.

He stops, seeing his own face staring back at him. It descends very slowly, not moving in any other way. The body, hanging upside-down, sinks out of the darkness into the dim light and he sees it is a metal Sonic, a design he has never seen before, of blue paint, 3 spines, black eyes and a jet engine in the torso. The screaming noise of scraping metal only gets louder and Sonic starts moving forward again. He sees clones of the metal Sonic descend, their forms appearing out of the blips of light, and he then sees Silver Sonics, Mark I and II, just the same, hanging, dead. Suspended by twisting cables, they sink through the small air down to the floor. Sonic continues running as more bodies are exposed by the dim lights below. They are at eye-level with Sonic, their dead expressions facing him as he runs past. The exit still remains far away.

The pain of the noise forces Sonic to look up in exasperation and he finally sees the ceiling, slowly sliding down the walls. The grinding metal is piercingly loud now and the pseudo-Sonics touch and fold across the floor and each other. Sonic can no longer run between them and the thick vines of wires and cables, so he must spin dash through them. The ceiling is now coming into full light of dark blood. The Sonics bend and pile on each other. Sonic spin dashes, ripping through them, tearing through them, rushing to the light of the exit. After endless spindashes, he finally breaks through the slightly opened door at the end and escapes certain death.

Sonic takes a quick look back, but his vision is caught. As the rusty edge of the ceiling starts to lower in front of the door, he jumps and loses a breath for the entire corridor lit up at once. He sees hundreds of digital eyes flash on, their bodies waking, squirming, struggling, tangled between themselves and the cables. Some start violently shaking, tearing at the cables, bashing each other, their eyes staring at Sonic clutching at anything to escape. Sonic watches in horror as the ceiling slowly and inevitably wraps them in ropes, constricting the dense piles of Sonics until they have no room to move anything but their arms and heads. A Silver Sonic by the door throws out its arm and clutches at the smooth ground in vain, scraping it with its fingers with an eerie copy of the screaming metal. It could not move. It budges its shoulder, its arm tightly bound by wires and the weight of another Silver Sonic. It slaps the floor in desperation, it curls its hand into a fist and slams it down and it slammed repeatedly as hundreds of identical robots behind it struggle frantically to escape. Sonic is silent and frozen. They punch each other if they could, they violently throw their heads back trying to cut whatever they could with the blades of their quills. And all, all of them, repeatedly twist and fling their arms and legs and body and head, repeating the same movements over and over, more and more violently. And most of them stop trying to move and only look at Sonic the hedgehog, motionless with vivid, living eyes. The ceiling is halfway down the door's height. There begins the crunch of metal.

Sonic looks at the Silver Sonic, which had stopped moving although its arm was out of the doorway. Without thinking, he drops to a crouch and grasps its hand with both of his own and pulled and yanked. He leans back, pulling with all of his strength and weight. The cables are tightly binding the Silver Sonic within the death chamber, but Sonic did not stop to cut them. He only pulls harder. He closes his eyes, grunting, sweating, ignoring the shriek of metal death. His mind is black and empty of all but his arms.

Slam.

No sound.

Sonic looks at the door, the wall. Silver Sonic laid there unmoving... but in one piece. Its head turned to the side, eyes giving a small glow on the metal floor.

Sonic backs away. What... what was he doing? What was he doing?! He hesitates in the face of memory but turns and he runs away.

He enters a commercial area, showcasing Robotnik memorabilia and Robotnik merchandise. There is a store dedicated to the Robotnik comic book, a store filled with Robotnik television shows and movies, a Robotnik bookstore, even Robotnik-themed restaurants. He saw a sign pointing to "the Egg-o-Matic wing".

"What the fuck," Sonic

Behind glass, holding open arms wide, glassy-eyed Robotnik fuzzy stomach long silky mustache hair. Death Egg plush pillow, with lights behind the eyes in the fluff of the pillow for the kids.

And then Sonic saw the Robotnik porn shop.

Sonic had enough he ran. He does not want to see anymore. The path slopes down. He smells some type of grilled food, some comely flavor of an unknown meat in an unknown yet tasty sauce. He keeps his eyes directly at the ground, but things snagged the corner of his eye like a fish hook. A television plays a Robotnik-themed anime with Robotnik characters on screen using Robotnik items and participating in Robotnik events with Robotnik fights for Robotnik justice. Another Robotnik anime to compete, a Robotnik video game, Robotnik news, drama, comedy. He did not see but he heard, and it was Robotnik's voice and machine-made sound.

He turns a corner around a Robotnik recruiting station to the badniks, but he must look to see the eyes of an Egg Robo permanently attached to a chair. It slowly swivels as it stares at Sonic. Sonic looks back at it.

Finally, he sees a pair of doors to use to finally escape to get out to get the fuck away from here! He smashes through them.

It is a room with a low ceiling and a bottomless floor. Bridging the door to the next door is a horizontal platform and a familiar sign bearing the image of Robotnik stands in the very middle. And around the room randomly throughout the pit are thin columns standing out of the darkness, each holding its own Robotnik sign. They all face Sonic. They all turn to face Sonic. Their painted faces face Sonic as he runs. He passes by the sign which spins in a flurry of sparkles, only to return to Robotnik's face. He exits through the next door.

.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

_There should be 10 minutes remaining. This Boss's recommended time clear is 4 minutes._

Sonic finally arrives at the central core of the Death Egg: the generator room. It is a very wide circular chamber with a large cylindrical machine taking up most of the space in the center. Four stripes of layered glass circle around it, showing an ongoing reaction of fuel inside the core tank which sends waves of glowing energy up metallic plates and wires into a gyrating, buzzing contraption, which itself connects to the reactor tank above it. Large fuel tanks are attached to the walls and connected to the core cylinder via transparent pipes which pump in glowing fluid. Near the top, long mirrors lining the walls are angled up to the ceiling.

He steps on metal grating and looks below to see the long tubes of the chamber and generator descend down many floors, and looking up it ascends just as many. He assumes it's as long as the outer core structure itself.

Figuring that the current state of ruin was caused by the last time he was here, Sonic then remembers that once Robotnik's Death Egg Suit was destroyed, its explosions somehow connected to the Death Egg. He suspects that the volatile fuel, whatever it is... hopefully inorganic... is pumped and used throughout the entire space station. If the fuel control is disrupted before the generator deactivates, it should melt down. And without control or power, a chain reaction set off in the core should spread across the entire structure and obliterate the Death Egg once and for all. He sees just below the see-through ceiling a large computer console, resting on a ring platform that's cut out from the sides of the generator's thick metal wall.

.

Sonic jumps and wall jumps onto and from the many platforms and pipes attached to the generator to make his way up to the top.

.

Landing on the solid steel floor there, he sees in the center a thick but transparent tube where within electricity arcs from this section of the generator to a diode in the bottom of the next section of generator above. He also notices that the mirrors are angled for someone up here to keep open visuals on the core reactions.

He walks over to the console only for a dome-shaped energy barrier to project out and block it from him. A tinny, broken klaxon wheels and clicks lamely through the air and the lights shut off. The emergency lights with their broken lamps slowly spin cones of red light over the bright glow of the reactor.

Sonic is annoyed for a brief second when he is alerted by the sound of metal breaking and banging about above him. He looks up and sees a ball of machinery crashing down through the metal floors.

In a few seconds it falls down past Sonic followed by a rain of grating pieces. It then slowly rises before him. It's a very old machine, all of its parts visible with their dust and dents. It uses a combustion engine to keep itself aloft with 4 rockets around its clunky underside. Two large spiked spheres hang from chains coiled up behind its flimsy armor.

.

The armor is no joke though. Sonic cannot damage the robot at all. Instead, to 'win', he has to stand in front of the console so the robot's attack smashes into it. Otherwise he can run around the small console floor to evade.

Its attacks are:

- spinning its two large spiked balls around in a falling circle, the two swings completely out-of-phase, (it's risky but Sonic can jump and roll between them)

- and locking-on Sonic before hurling a single spiked ball at his position.

It is this second attack which passes through the barrier and breaks the console. The first will just bounce off.

The reactor's glow will radically change color and start flashing brighter and brighter. Sonic jumps off the cylinder with a smirk and plows through the door opposite of his entrance to escape. All of the alarms go off and the Death Egg slowly starts to rumble.

.

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[Act 3]

_The time limit still continues! There should be 6 minutes remaining, but the level can be cleared in 3 minutes at best with a flawless playthrough._

_In addition, a wall of death will chase Sonic down this level. If he is caught by it at akk, after his quick death there is a cutscene showing the Death Egg explode into thousands of pieces. They rain down on Mobius, and that's it. Sonic will be dead._

An explosion from the core sends a shock wave launching Sonic off his feet. He slams into an air vent, but after a short flinch he runs again. The walls start to shake as he exits a short corridor into a wider maintenance tunnel. A few cracks in the pipes on the walls blow out steam as he runs through.

Sonic runs at full speed down the tunnel before leading into a large central shaft. He carefully jumps to a lower tunnel, when mid-jump the shaft's ceiling explodes downwards. The old robot blasts in front of a wall of fire. Sonic jumps and turns to run, and the robot immediately turns in and chases after him. The wall of flames surges in right after.

Its armor is now burnt off so it's vulnerable to being attacked. At first it seems to risky to try as Sonic will be incinerated if he slows down too much to finish the fight. So he must avoid the robot's persistent attacks while keeping forward momentum, and counter-attack only if he's safe to bounce back on solid ground. Sonic's primary concern is to escape.

.

- _Area 1_: Sonic runs through ventilation rooms, pumping rooms, fuel tank storage rooms, and small power control rooms. While they are all flat, there may be one or two hazards in each room from pre-existing damage. Steam and constant electric arcs may stand in his way, but in the fuel tank room the fuel tanks explode in a rapid chain from behind as soon as the fire bursts in. Sonic must not slow down there at all or risk death. Meanwhile, the robot uses either of its two attacks from the fight before while keeping at a set but close distance from Sonic. Sonic can get two hits in this area.

.

- _Area 2_: Sonic breaks down a door and runs across a long, single catwalk which stretches from the core structure back to the main wall. The wall of fire suddenly blasts out into the open air of the inner sphere, giving both the robot and Sonic a short boost. It also breaks the bridge's support, causing it to fly in the air before dropping and yanking a whip-like wave of falling catwalk down towards Sonic and the robot.

In the background, one can see the whole Death Egg shaking apart, chains of explosions rippling out of areas with a lot of fuel, and the core itself blasting apart piece by piece, as if struggling to be destroyed as slow as possible. Any place that somehow still had power would be awash in waves of rotating, flashing colors from alarms. The alarm sound itself was drowned out by the constant noise of the space station shaking apart.

As for the robot, it continues attacking, and Sonic can get up to four hits on this otherwise easy part.

.

- _Area 3_: This area has sections in the styles of both _Sonic & Knuckles' _and _Sonic 2's Death Egg Zone_. They have more vertical drops and turns but are mostly hazardless. Instead, intersecting paths from the left, above, or below sometimes surprise Sonic with an oncoming wave of explosions. Sonic must keep concentrated and not hesitate. Sonic can get three hits in this area.

As Sonic gets closer to the outer sphere, he can see through broken walls the outer sphere and the outer shell of the Death Egg. Beyond giant fissures, growing in size from the constant destruction, the surface of Mobius is much more close, and therefore visible, than before. Between the moonlight, the giant, shattered shadow of the Death Egg returns the darkness to the night. Most importantly though, these views tell Sonic how close he is to the end of the escape.

_As the timer approaches "0:00", the surface will get increasingly close. From in here, Sonic actually has 20 more seconds to escape the Death Egg. If he is still within, a separate cutscene plays showing the Death Egg smashing into the planet from inside. There is a brief moment after the starting collision and before the collision with Sonic where one can see earth, metal, and fire explode together in a flash of light. _

.

- _Area 4_: The robot backs off out of sight although it isn't destroyed yet. There is no wall of fire either so for now nothing chases him but time. Sonic re-enters areas from Act 1 involving more complicated movement across tunnels, shafts, and girder structures in open air. Now there are many more hazards of the types from Area 1: steam, electricity, and explosions. There are also segments of ground scorching hot or even on fire. Especially in the open outer sphere, the junk will be constantly shifting around and changing the ground underneath him. Areas inside may crumble, dropping deadly chunks of ceiling or having the floor fall away beneath.

As he gets halfway through the outer sphere, he can see explosions dashing up distant sections of the wall. Fissures crack through gargantuan spaces and entire sections crumble either inward or out into the sky. There are large gaps in Sonic's way and he has to be careful not to fall in. He may get stuck, having to waste time getting out, or he'll fall into a pit of dangerous hazards or worse, simply falling into open sky. At the end of this area, he must learn how to run across ceilings to cross a huge chasm caused by a large piece of the floor simply falling away.

.

- _Area 5_: Sonic stops as his path has abruptly ended. A massive chunk of the Death Egg starts to rip apart before his very eyes, creating a gigantic ravine between him and the final stretch out the side of the Death Egg. He then hears an explosion from behind and within seconds sees the spiked ball robot charging at him. As it does so, the very floor Sonic stands on budges downward and he sees a distant fracture zip far around him. Soon, the whole section he is in cracks apart and crumbles into pieces. Before it's too late, Sonic jumps and breaks through layers of broken metal in walls and ceilings to climb back up and leap to more stable pieces of ground. But then those start to fall apart too!

The robot smashes through the debris behind Sonic and relentlessly chases him down while he runs and jumps up a waterfall of scraps and fragments. He can't move fast even if he wanted to, and finds himself forced to fight the robot while constantly saving his own life. He often finds it easiest to do so in the room-like parts, before or after they fall, as the robot can't break them easily. He can counter-attack once every now and then before returning to platforming. If he stays still too long, he'll find the robot breaking his footholds if not hitting him directly with its heavy ball-and-chain attacks. After six hits in combination with the hits above, or sixteen hits in total, the robot is finally destroyed. The final hit knocks it back, cracking it and causing tongues of fire to shoot out of it. It then falls away with the rest of the junk before exploding.

Sonic can take a short breather once he finally reaches the other side of the ravine. The time is almost up.

.

- _Area 6_: Explosions are rocking the entire space fortress. The background is lighting up with electricity and fire, everything melting, burning, and crumbling apart in a bath of enfueled fire.

Sonic must combine running at high speeds on both floors and ceilings, quickly timed jumping over a few series of small platforms, and wall-jumping with high precision and speed up short walls to keep his speed while clearing the last distance. It is tense, and it is nothing but platforming.

Halfway to the end, a light flares from the core. It is followed by an enormous ball of fire and a shock wave with the boom ripping off all of the weak areas of the structure. The explosion is still expanding as Sonic is running, and as the fire engulfs everything in its way, smaller explosions connect and chain out of it, consuming the entire battle station in every area. The final stretch is still solid for as long as Sonic keeps top speed and permits no mistake. He will be disintegrated in an instant otherwise. Bouncing off surfaces for 7 seconds he passes through the outer wall of the Death Egg. He crosses it in half a second.

What remains is a single red pylon stretching far out into the sky. It is a 5 second straight run. Sonic can survive as long as the explosion doesn't touch him. At the very end, he leaps out into the air.

.

_The player now gets to control Sonic's limbs and facial expression in the air and adjust them however wanted. This will be how he is positioned for the remainder of the cutscene._

Sonic is soaring through the air as the entire Death Egg explodes at once behind him, a constant sparkling, flashing ball of light and color, so bright it completely illuminates the night like the angry return of the sun.

Relieved, Sonic relaxes and closes his eyes as gravity and the fresh air takes him. He then suddenly lands on solid ground and finds himself rolling down a slope of some sort. As it evens out, he opens his eyes and wonders if he landed on another floating air base.

It's not. He looks at it, at the path it made into the distance. It is a sparkling, beautiful material: fading from pure red to deep blue and full green while remaining glass-like, like the rainbow fire of an opal burning with animation. It made a road through the high air, twisting and turning in loops and curves without weight or support, chasing west after the departed sun.

.

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**Silver Skyway** [Act 1] (1/6)

_This level is just for pure speed. There is nothing to slow Sonic down._

_As time goes on, the moon will rise higher and the stars and constellations slowly become completely visible._

_A catchy melody waving along in an upbeat but relaxed mood, before breaking out with a groovy bridge and chorus._

_._

Beaming in the light of the rising moon is the rain of metallic scrap across the sky, along with a few lumbering clouds. The stars come out, starting to twinkle, and high above there are noctilucent clouds, glowing irridescently at the edge of sight.

"What the heck is this?! It's just floating in the air, and I happened to land right _on_ it?!" Sonic laughs as he looks at it stretch on through the sky, floating still and not moving an inch.

The edges of the road are lined with silver sinusoidal forms. The road itself is constantly changing colors, in waves of hue pulsing rhythmically down its serpentine path. It likes to go straight, letting Sonic pick up or keep top speed, before flipping out and swinging around in every direction, sending Sonic in turns, circles, loop-de-loops, emmelmans, corkscrews, helices, and tight dense knots through the upper troposphere.

Sonic then sees where it leads to. A thin, stone tower pierces the sky and the rainbow crystal road is shooting out from a hole in its topmost roof. It then drapes down its sides in a helical pyramid, before flinging out high in the air in a gigantic slope. After a short period, he reaches that slope and ascends the final helix around the tower. He makes his way around the long vertical loop when the road suddenly shatters into glittering sparkles of light. But the floor disappeared at just the right time and angle, flinging Sonic in the perfect parabola that brings him flush with the inner walls of the tower. With this boost from gravity, Sonic blasts down the hollow tower.

.

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**Mechanix Seal** [Act 1] (1/7)

_Calm ambience of lapping waves, a gentle breeze with occasional gusts, and quiet electronic hums._

With one step, Sonic bounds down a hundred meters. The force of his speed blasts apart the stone pillars and bricks making up the tower walls. They fly up into the air, breaking into dust blown into the wind. The clouds whoosh by and Sonic soon sees the horizon of the ocean through the open windows zipping by. Shortly after, he sees the beach of an island the tower sits upon.

He starts to see the tower is attached to the edge of a gothic cathedral, but soon finds himself seconds away from the ground. Fortunately, the walls gradually curve and transfer him safely but rather quickly across the ground. He then blasts through a wooden double door, sending flying a cloud of splinters, exploding out of the nave of the cathedral.

He tries to skid to a stop and slides down the marble hall. He finds it's abandoned, with the walls broken in holes and covered in vines, and parts of the floor grassy and covered in plants. However, there remained a few stained glass windows intact, with abstract and detailed designs, and broken but impressive statues of religious figures. Sonic can't slow down enough though, and breaks through the larger wooden doors in the lobby. As he flies over the staircase and onto the grass, he slows down much faster. He comes to a stop.

.

He finds himself on the top of grassy hill overlooking a small temperate island in the middle of the sea, shaded by a thin blanket of mist. It is still night, but mostly cloudless. The low tide shines its content back at the moon.

Sonic explores. There are hills and fields of grass, pockets and small forests (mostly of willow and maple trees). Sonic runs up and down the rolling, smooth hills with ease as the waves roll quietly over long stretches of sand. Sonic goes through a few rock gardens and groves before he finds a few separate ruins. There are piles of stone rubble, but also intact foundations with large, fractured marble columns. In one ruin, he'll need to climb on top of one and hop across the others to get across.

He enters a vine-covered pergola in a forest when he finds a staircase leading underground. He enters a series of torch-lit anterooms (they look similar to _Marble_ _Zone_ from _Sonic 1_). He descends a few more staircases before turning around through another corridor. He sees a dead end ahead, only to notice in the darkness a figure running away from him. Curious because it didn't make any sound, Sonic enters the last room. He hears the clanks of iron as he finds the room hollow and empty. The floor shakes under his weight and he hears gears creak and shift. Sonic realizes it's an elevator as it slowly descends into darkness.

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[Act 2]

_Ambience of long, dark tones crawling out of silence._

_Basement Floor 1_: The platform comes to a stop, sliding into a shallow pit. Ahead is a dark square tunnel with damp stones and puddles on the floor. The only light comes underneath the bottom stones, an unnatural dark red glow. The walls are covered with abstract engravings of spirals and zig-zags, probably representing wind and fire. He then enters a large hallway facing a bright red light, casting long black shadows from the iron columns and vaulting. It opens into a truly massive chamber wherein stands an incredible four-story iron and stone statue of magnificent form and minute detail. Between all of the millions of crevices is the source of the red light. It is bipedal, but its species, gender, and even emotion seems impenetrable. A castellated wall stands between Sonic and the idol, but he sees a half-circle's view as he runs around it to the other side. He then goes through an identical hallway and stone tunnel before entering a large spiral stairwell.

_BF2_: At the bottom, he enters the second basement floor through another stone corridor, although this one is larger and slightly dryer. It seems to have once been booby-trapped, as it is filled with many broken hazards. There are shattered spikes, frozen smashing columns, and burnt-out fire pits. Although a handful are still alive, they are easy to pass. He enters the second floor of the idol chamber, goes through another trap corridor, then runs around the next stairwell.

_BF3_: The third floor is different. The noise of metal creaking and churning grow louder and the red light burns brighter. Stones have fallen out of the wall, showing iron girders behind them. Long arcades of stone columns give way to I-beams on a metal plate and mesh floor hanging from the ceiling above darkness. Below in the darkness, the red light trickles down giant gears and axles slowly moving a gargantuan hidden machine. Past the third floor of the idol chamber is a similar metallic antechamber, but it has live hazards. There are many electric arcs and spikes of sharply frayed mesh. He then reaches the third stairwell, a hollow steel-and-handrail staircase on iron plated walls.

_BF4:_ At the bottom, Sonic finds the walls are simply hanging in a wide abyss. Below and around it is empty space and the sparse clockwork of the monolithic mystery machine, slowly rolling on. Trying to make sense of it, Sonic keeps moving and finds the fourth floor corridor is simply a rectangular cage of mesh swinging a little from his side to the other side. He walks into it, hearing the metal clink underneath him, and looks above him as he walks. He sees the two floors above him are also hollow bridges of iron and metal, and only the first floor is actually rock. Even the great statue itself was hanging from the rock ceiling. All else was shadow. It was an extremely large cavern, completely dwarfing the size of the island just above...

The cage comes to a metal cathedral hanging by the very bottom of the idol. A clear, bright red line of curved light shines just under the idol's feet, facing towards the cathedral's side. It is the top of a gigantic pillar, with neon red light emitting from its circular capital and plinth something six stories into pure darkness below.

.

He enters the wooden doors into the atrium, and then enters the nave. It is identical in size and overall shape to the one above ground. Yet it is twisted into the decaying frame of metal. It has walls of dented iron plating and chain-link fences, steel posts and beams, and chipped fans chopping the red light in malicious shadows across the hollow floor. There are bronze statues of Mobioids intact, and moving too, with jerks in rotating parts.

At the end is simply a hollow circular space. It has the same radius as the tower above, but this one goes straight down into the shadows. The only thing keeping Sonic from falling is a chain-link floor. But in its center is a wooden gate, and Sonic jumps on it and falls through. He should wall-jump on his way down or otherwise get hurt. There is a solid bottom, littered with piles of skeletons. Creeped out, Sonic quickly moves into the next corridor.

The walls curve around in a sleek chromed steel. Thin conduits of red energy pulse down crevices branched in simplistic patterns. He then finds himself standing on a small square platform overlooking a large room below. The walls are futuristically structured with moving energy and lights that is completely different than anything he's seen before. In fact, it seems almost more advanced than anything Robotnik made. Industrial design takes on the role of powerful abstract religious in shaping the room, making Sonic curiously look down. He sees all of the energy connected to a triangle recessed into the wall. A robotic figure is interlocked into the machinery of the glowing triangle in the wall. He then looks at what he saw standing next to it: a familiar man with his floating pod. Sonic jumps down.

.

Sonic lands on the steel floor with a clangy thwack. The room echoes and then stays silent. A rhythm of red light followed by darkness pulses down through the designs on the walls and floor of the room. Sonic can't help but look around at all of the light and form coming into this one being. He takes a closer look at it, seeing its front bathed in shadow from the great light behind it. It looks stocky and around Robotnik's height.

"You survived." Robotnik says, staring at the creature without turning around.

"You need to stop underestimating me. I knew the Death Egg inside and out. It's blown up now and you're trapped. It's over, Robotnik."

Robotnik only kept looking at the creature, silent.

"Before I beat you up, I'm curious. What is that?"

Robotnik turns around, smiling, his spectacles reflecting a flare of red light.

"This, this is the most powerful robot in the history of Mobius, "Mechanix"! For once, even I am in awe! They tried to seal it away, but they never thought someone like me would exist in the future. Now it is mine."

He turns and raises his arms. "Awaken, Mechanix!"

The red light starts to dissipate. Replacing it is a rainbow of hues as like the colors in the road of Silver Skyway. They pulse polyrythmically in colored waves towards the darkness of the ceiling. A machine of restraints and tubes slowly rotate and detach from Mechanix. The many connecting tubes and scaffolds to the robot slowly rotate and pull off of it. Its eyes pulsate a deep azure, dimly. It raises its left arm, then its right. It leans forward and bends its legs, then jumps high into the air. It lands flat on both feet with a resounding clang, and walks behind Robotnik. Sonic keeps his cool, while expecting a long explanation.

"Long before your stupid people's idea of history, there was a more advanced civilization that ruled the world. There are many locations like this, simply located deep underground. They were not that smart though, just like you, and nearly obliterated themselves with an apocalyptic weapon that scorched the entire surface of the planet."

He turns with an open hand at Mechanix. "Beyond that technology is this, the zenith of Mobians' intelligence. They called it the "Ultimate Being" and worshiped it as a god, their own creation. It succeeded in its purpose to cleanse the overworld of deadly radioactive gas, reversing their own foolishness. It bears the work of a hundred geniuses and harnesses the power of life and death. It is incredibly powerful, and the secrets of its design are so efficiently manufactured that even I'm amazed. This is the last thing the planet of Mobius can teach me."

"Hahaha..." he slowly turns back to Sonic. "The true genius of it is, my plan involves me learning something and completing the final phase of the plan, as part of the plan. Ahaha! It's just a puzzle, that's all it is!"

Sonic says, "He must be really strong, huh? So I'm not just going to run over there and beat you up?"

Robotnik laughs. "No. Mechanix!"

Mechanix tenses and then takes a wide battle pose.

"Kill that hedgehog!"

Its eyes beam with blue light, then it suddenly dashes at Sonic!

.

[Act 2 Boss : MECHANIX]

Mechanix has a blocky and sharply angled body, seemingly made out of cubes and pyramids. Its design repeats smaller shapes in fine detail. A slim visor sweeps over its glowing eyes. His body is a blank white with subtle changes to various colors.

Robotnik is in the background watching the fight, directing Mechanix by moving his arms in ways like a punch or a swing, and Sonic can look at it to predict Mechanix's attacks (but not his movements). For movement, besides running somewhat slower than Sonic, he can jump four times as high as Sonic, wall-jump just as high, and perform short mid-air dashes.

His attacks are:

- (Robotnik punches) Dashing forward to slice with his blade-covered arms,

- (Robotnik jumps and punches) Leaping up and doing a mid-air slice-dash,

- (Robotnik punches with both fists) Thrusting forward his palm with claws extended, launching forth an energy projectile resembling a spinning crescent,

- (Robotnik presses his index finger and thumb together) Locking-on Sonic and firing a quick energy blast from its outstretched hand multiple times (Sonic should keep moving to avoid being hit),

- (Robotnik swings his arm wildly) Locking-on Sonic and then dashing at him with a powerful energy thrust attack (Sonic must avoid standing on any point of the line between Mechanix's initial position and Sonic's previous position, or else be hit).

Sixteen hits knock Mechanix back and he falls on one leg.

.

"Very impressive indeed, ahahaha!" Robotnik suddenly cackles, his hands in his pockets.

"What?! I just beat him! Haha, you fool, I'm coming for you next!"

"Now wait a second, Sonic! Isn't it better to hear me talk? So you can learn, dunce? After all, you learned how to evade Mechanix from _me_, did you not?"

Sonic snorts. "Yeah, okay, that was totally why I won."

"Imbecile. Your puny brain only comprehends what it's seen. This was just a test. I was simply testing its power at its very minimum! Did he not put you on the defensive at least once? Right after being revived!"

"You should understand quickly because it's quite effectively the perfect Metal Sonic. The core of its power is the core of yours. The ability to harness energy itself, the capacity to direct the flow of a stream of infinite energy..."

Sonic smirked. "I was wondering how those were involved this time. Can't you rely on anything _besides_ the Chaos Emeralds?"

"I don't give a shit what you think. They are more worthy of my possession than anything else in this weak, incompetent world. Animal cores are marginally better than gas, and Emeralds are condensed Power Rings anyway."

Sonic sighs in disgust, hearing about the animals. "Face it, you're actually pretty stupid. How many times do I have to bash you on the head with the Emeralds you never get?"

Robotnik snickers. "Arguing with you is very amusing. Small child, have you lost your emeralds? You don't seem to have any on you!" He says while making an exaggerated frown.

Sonic laughs but hesitates. Robotnik continues, folding his arms behind his back, "My plan is so veritably manifested that I can tell it to you directly with no consequence. With the seven Chaos Emeralds, I will unlock the transcendent powers of Mechanix and conquer the world shortly thereafter. And in the meantime, I will launch all of my most powerful attacks against Mobius. Even if you succeed in defending the world from me, you absolutely could never stop Mechanix from destroying the world. I bet my life on that."

"Nice idea, leaving things up to chance!" Sonic suddenly shouts and sprints towards Robotnik.

Robotnik laughs and nods, then lobs a grenade four seconds into its timer. It immediately explodes in front of Sonic, who reacts by skidding to a stop to turn. It's a flashbang, and Sonic is blinded and stunned by the noise for a split-second. Through a blur he walks forward, only for another explosion blast in front of him, followed by a plume of smoke and dust. He flinches away covering his eyes, then turns back and painfully opens them again.

Robotnik sits comfortably in his Egg-O-Matic while Mechanix leans against the side of the backseat. The smoke clears behind them. A hole is blown into the wall with rubble skewn across the floor.

"You operated exactly as planned. You destroyed the Death Egg with just enough time for me to free Mechanix. Then you helped validate its strength! Oh, you good boy! It is such a shame you have to die. Goodbye!"

He rotates around and jets off into the cavern, already gone from sight.

"Damn you, this isn't over!" Sonic yells.


	3. Sonic Ballistic, Part 2

Part 2

**Crystal Cavern** [Act 1] (2/8)

Sonic chases after Robotnik. The blasted tunnel connects to a series of long, twisting caverns. Large crystals point out of the rock surfaces, shining with a magical soft light. While they're pretty to look at at first, their sharp edges may jut out of the ground and walls in places like spikes, necessitating careful platforming. These tunnels twist, turn, drop, rise, split up and join back together, but fortunately there are not many dead ends. They occasionally enter into large cave spaces, sometimes the same ones. In addition to the usual platforming, some of the rocks crumble beneath his weight and he'll need to time his jumps quickly. In a few areas, if he falls, he will fall into a crystal pit _[i.e. a spike_ _pit], _unable to escape. Most of the large caverns are centered on underground lakes _(in which Sonic can always escape, unless he chooses to stay still and drown for some reason)_. Aside from that, the only other threat comes from the waves of robots that Robotnik called ahead to slow Sonic down, but they are pretty weak. Overall, the cave is mostly horizontal.

Sonic comes to a waterfall spilling down a wide vertical chasm, with no footholds to climb. Instead, he sees a cave beyond the curtain of water and spindashes to make it there (walking, running, or jumping into it will just push him back out). The small cave seems to be a dead end, but the wall ahead is actually a pile of collapsed rocks. There is a tight passage in the bottom which Sonic can spindash through to roll to the other side.

On the other side, he finds himself at a true dead end, but this place is different. The surfaces are mostly clean and flat aside from a few small stalagmites and stalactites. Crystals of like size and shape are set straight in the rock, resting next to each other like a mosaic. These crystals form a ring around the medium-sized chamber, and their light pulses through each other around in circles. At the other side of the room is a crystal larger than any he's seen yet. It's cracked and bears runic engravings. Every few seconds it fills with light and glows brightly before fading back to transparency. Sonic sees a creature, a man, trapped inside, his image distorted by the crystal's interior self-reflections. He thinks he sees a tunnel hidden behind it and decides to break it apart. He hits the crystal three times and the cracks cleave all the way through, shattering it into sparkling shards.

.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

The man inside falls backward on the ground. It seems there was a space inside the crystal as he is not crystallized himself, but he still must be dead. The man is an echidna, gray, and naked except for the mysterious markings and rings around his limbs. "Power rings!" Sonic realizes, and just then the rings start to glow and rotate against the ground. Then the markings glow once, in a pulse of light from the rings up his limbs, over his body, and toward his head. Once it reaches his eyes, his eyes shoot open. He then shouts out in agony for a few seconds, before seeing Sonic and then quickly turning onto his feet. He shouts again, this time a battle cry, and rushes at Sonic!

.

His attacks are:

- punching, which fires multiple fist-sized energy projectiles at Sonic,

- stepping back and throwing out his chest, which then emits three to seven circular waves of smaller energy projectiles (ten to twenty per wave),

- spinning around before punching, which fires a pulsing energy projectile at Sonic that explodes on contact,

- and holding out one arm with open palm, his other arm supporting it, which fires an energy beam that he can adjust slightly while firing it.

Despite his ferocity and quick attacks, he seems to be wincing in pain and his movement is slow (particularly his evasion). He takes eight hits before falling to one knee, defeated.

.

The echidna stares at the floor, trembling with anger.

"Augh... So be it. Kill me."

Sonic laughs. "What, why? I was only defending myself. Who are you, anyway?"

The echidna looks up with rage. "What vile torment! You gain nothing by tarnishing my honor further! I demand you kill me!"

Sonic shakes his head and crosses his arms. "I don't think so, man. Calm down! If anything, I just saved your life! You were trapped in that crystal there... actually, I'm surprised you didn't suffocate or starve to death in it."

The echidna's expression stays for a moment, but then a thought flashes and he turns his head around. For another moment, he stares, but then quickly turns again and lowers his gaze.

"Is that so! I was freed..."

He looks at Sonic and then bows again, planting his head on the floor.

"I have given you shame, sire. I am a lowly fool. I deserve no honor. Do with me as you will."

Sonic rolls his eyes. He walks over to him. The guy remains in kowtow. Sonic shakes his head again and lowers his hand, crouching to get it in the guy's view. Seeing it, he slowly looks up at Sonic, seemingly scared. "For speed's sake, grab my hand and stand up, will ya?!" He slowly touches, then grasps his gloved hand and then Sonic yanks him up all at once.

"We are equals. Equals! I don't even know who you are and you're acting all crazy on me. Let's start again, okay? Now, tell me your name."

Now the man is beaming, a smile growing across his face. He looks around, up and down, as if gazing upon some incredible deity. He even turns around, as if thinking something out. Sonic starts to pat his foot, but with one pat the man turns and looks straight at Sonic.

"My name is Zaga. I am the greatest warrior of the echidnas. If I may say so, and I suppose I may as you deem us equals: you amaze me quite delightfully. To not even know who I am! And then to best me in combat?! While I may be weak, that was no small feat. I assume you are a distant stranger, which makes it all the more curious. But then, to let me live, call me your equal... whatever tradition you hail from, sire, it is a life-giving fountain of justice. I am... honored."

"It **is** 'curious'. I've never heard of you, and I am *ahem* the greatest warrior in the world! More importantly, you're an echidna! I thought they were extinct, except-"

"What?!" Zaga interjects. "Extinct?! Are you mad?! An idiot?!" Wide-eyed, he then catches himself and takes a breath. "Forgive me. I would never think to hear such words. Truly, there is a mystery at hand between you and me."

He then smiles. "It is exciting. Come," he motions to the floor, then sits down cross-legged. "Sit."

Sonic pauses, concerned about Robotnik's escape with Mechanix. He then remembers Mechanix Seal and its ancient design. He has a hunch this man might know something. So he sits. "I am absolutely certain you are not from my world. You seem to know nothing about it..."

"And I am just as certain that you are not from mine. Our only connection is through the crystal seal."

"Seal?" Sonic asks, as light continues to swing around the room's walls.

Now Zaga pauses. He looks to the side, placing his hand over his chin and mouth.

He turns back, and asks, "Was Mechanix released as well?"

Sonic is surprised, slightly. "Yeah. By Doctor Robotnik. ...He's an evil genius, oppressor of Mobians, and my archnemesis. He plans on fully powering it up to destroy the world."

"Mechanix was not destroyed!" Zaga whispers to himself. "His infinite power continues to beckon evil, throughout time..."

Sonic suddenly understands.

"You... Are you one of the ancients who created Mechanix? From the dead civilization?"

Zaga's eyes shot open. He trembled for a moment, flexed to resist it, and looked away. He takes a little while to recover. Sonic realizes what he said must be true.

While Sonic was thinking, Zaga breaks the silence, saying, "That is it. That is why. I was not only exiled from home, from freedom... but from my own era in time. I have awakened... in the distant future."

Zaga suddenly looks at Sonic, searching for an answer in his eyes.

"How long has it been? Since my civilization went extinct? What happened to my world?!"

Sonic is saddened, but shrugs and shakes his head. "I don't know. I'm the one of the few people who even know what an echidna is. There are only ruins now, it seems. Although, Robotnik... Robotnik must have learned about your people from your ruins, to know where and what Mechanix is."

Zaga stands up. Sonic then follows suite.

He looks out at nothing again. "I must seek out this Robotnik. I will destroy Mechanix once and for all, and then I will force him to tell my the end of my people's history."

He then turns to Sonic with a confident but serious expression. "It is settled, then. We are allies, after all! But no more talk. If Mechanix is freed, time is equivalent to life itself. We absolutely must not let Mechanix's true power become fully realized once again. I fear it will destroy your world just as it did mine..."

Sonic nods and smiles. "With us, Zaga, not a chance! C'mon then, let's go!"

Zaga smiles back, but shakes his head. "No, I must recover for now. Go on ahead; I will continue in a moment. Our intertwined fates shall not leave us far from each other."

.

.

[Act 2]

The remainder of the cavern looks similar to the section before, however the path is slightly more challenging. There are many more crystals and careful platforming sequences to traverse, as well as more large caves with deep lakes Sonic can only cross by running over the water at top speed. In this section in general, there is more vertical platforming as Sonic comes closer to the cave's entrance at the surface. As he ascends, the crystals diminish in number and it becomes more of a conventional cave. Without those spikes it seems safer, but that also means it's darker. Sonic must be careful as the rocks are less stable, too, and he may fall into pits or get crushed to death if he's too careless. Finally, there are even more robots sent in to attack Sonic, and they have even set up ambushes, especially in the dark areas. In some narrow tunnels, there may even be walls of connected robots firing shots as Sonic breaks them apart to get through.

Sonic runs through a long tunnel in complete pitch-black, seeing at the end a ray of vibrant moonlight. He comes to it and looks up the beam, up the sides of the large and tall vertical shaft that eventually opens at an angle into the open night sky. Seeing a foothold, he starts jumping up all the ledges he can reach. Several times he finds he comes up short, and searches the opposite wall for a viable route. He finds them, but due to the cave's width he has to leap across with no hesitation, and even wall-jump for the extra height he may need.

And then he is stuck. He has covered quite some distance in height, making a fall deadly from here, but looking up he finds he's not even a quarter of the way to the entrance. He then notices a silhouette sticking out over the topsoil, but just then almost all light is obscured by its complete shadow. It rapidly drops down the cave, passing Sonic in a gust of wind, before slamming with the sound of metal on the stone floor. He looks down, and sees electric lights and hears the motion of an engine and gears. It extends two dark arms until they hit the walls, and then he hears the pressure of mechanical force and the drizzling crumbs of digging. It climbs the walls, level, and accelerates. In short time, this contraption rises in view below Sonic. On its long wings are grinding gears with fang-like teeth, and across their wide span are all sorts of functional weapons. As the gear comes for him, he jumps onto the machine.

.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

The elevator robot consists of a large, central, armored hemisphere, with its two flat wings reaching to both sides of the wall, telescoping back and forth as the width changes. Obviously, the sharp gears grinding up the walls are hazardous as spikes.

Its attacks are:

- firing eight laser beams from small tubes laid uniformly across its top surface from wingtip to wingtip,

- opening shutters at the edge of the wings, ejecting a finite amount of mini-robots that charge and attack Sonic in steady waves,

- charging electricity in tall coils right next to the gears before cracking open a few bolts of arced electricity from wingtip to wingtip (Sonic must wall-jump above the gears beforehand, as it's too short to duck under and lasts too long for the airtime of a normal jump),

- and opening compartments in the middle of both wings to fire multiple homing missiles (they home in on Sonic for 3.5 seconds).

By leading the missiles back to the main body, its armor can be damaged. After four volleys of missiles (or twenty individual missiles if Sonic does not get all the missiles in each volley), the armor is blown off. Sonic can now attack the vulnerable core.

This activates the last weapon:

- A turret rotates from the backside of the core and telescopes out its barrel. It is a machine gun which immediately sprays bullets at Sonic. Fortunately, they're energy bullets so they're slow enough to avoid, but they're also larger and force Sonic to carefully platform between them. Each volley lasts four seconds, with an eight second cool-down time.

The machine won't use its other weapons when it fires the machine gun, but there could still be mini-robots or homing missiles from its previous attack that can trap Sonic. This shouldn't be a problem, as Sonic can bounce on the core and land all eight hits before it fires again, so long as he avoids the other attacks.

An explosion blasts the small, spherical core into the air and a second explosion scatters it to smithereens. The rest of the machine simply stops in place. Conveniently, the semicircle that was holding the core in place is now visible. Sonic jumps in and spindashes up a side. He flies for a blip before landing on a smooth curve in the cave wall. He finds traction on dirt and soon grass as he climbs out of the cave. He returns to fresh air, directly under the moon.

.

.

**Green Meadows** [Act 1] (2/9)

_There are no power rings on this level._

_This level has a moderate resemblance to both Green Hill Zone from Sonic 1 and Emerald Hill Zone from Sonic 2. However, it is nighttime._

Sonic starts running down a grassy slope and looks around. Tall palm trees mix with fruit orchards, berry-laden bushes and fields of flowers between a soft, golden beach and verdant hills leading off a ridge of mountains. Looking off the island's edge, the ocean and night merge into darkness with not a cloud in sight.

Sonic dashes up and down the varying gradients of land through the isolated paradise. He rolls into a forested valley, and then climbs up the slopes of the mountain, jumping across steep ledges and past waterfalls. At the top, he starts to notice the glow of light and finds a harbor at the other side of the island. He leaps and rolls down the leeside's ledges before entering a large field. As he runs through a meadow of big sunflowers and tall grass, he spots and catches up with Robotnik.

.

"Stop right there, Robotnik!" Sonic shouts out. Robotnik turns his head to look, then stops and turns the whole Egg-o-Matic around.

"Did you really think you could outrun Sonic the hedgehog?" Sonic smugly states.

"Hoho. Don't tell me what I can and can't think, you stupid rat." Robotnik replies. "I anticipated this. Note how Mechanix isn't with me. I sent him ahead to prepare Tails' execution."

"What!" Sonic growls. "You bastard!"

Sonic bolts and spin attacks the Egg-O-Matic, making it recoil backwards. "How typically base. You have as much mind for your imminent death as the plants around you."

"That doesn't make sense." Sonic snarls. "You better explain something good before I _really_ whack you!"

Robotnik remains nonchalant. "Power rings litter the entire planet of Mobius. They are as naturally widespread as the weather. And yet, this island has none. Why is that?"

Sonic waits, tapping his foot.

"Idiot. It is because I took them all. This land no longer serves any purpose." He then presses a button on his console.

A shutter opens underneath the Egg-o-Matic and a flamethrower extends out of it. It immediately blows out a fireball across the ground. Sonic jumps out of the way as flames engulf the flora behind him. The fire catches and spreads quickly by itself and even more quickly as Robotnik turns the nozzle around, throwing fire in every direction. Within seconds, a wide swath of the meadow is ablaze. Just as Sonic sees an opening in the inferno, Robotnik then launches hundreds of small missiles from the back of the Egg-O-Matic which land across the rest of the fields all around them.

"Haha! Look at this madness! You've gotten so scared, Robotnik, you only feel safe destroying the helpless! Let me remind you who you should _really_ be scared of!"

.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

The place is the burning meadow inside a ring of fire. The enemy is Robotnik in his fire-spewing Egg-O-Matic.

His attacks are what were just shown:

- the flamethrower (its fireball grows as it is propelled out with more fire. Sonic must notice the pilot light and then roll under the initial flame to Robotnik's other side to evade the attack.)

- and the fire missile barrage (they launch and land one by one, blasting in a small, short-lasting column of flame. Sonic must avoid the impacts and columns as he runs back and forth.)

There is also an additional attack:

- the flamethrower rotates and changes place with a cannon that launches large exploding fireballs straight at Sonic's position every five seconds.

Robotnik moves horizontally, trying to corner Sonic against the ring of fire, or evading for a while after being hit. Every three hits, he will rise into the air and fire two of the three weapons twice before returning closer to the ground. Sonic should be careful, as he can easily lose rings into the fire if he has any. After eight hits, the damage explodes his weapons off, leaving the Egg-o-Matic naked yet again.

The pod sputters and Robotnik flees grimacing. Sonic gives chase at first, but his attention is caught by the shape of a roboticizer capsule in another direction. Angrily he looks back at Robotnik and runs to the capsule. He jumps on the button and blasts its walls open, releasing the captured animals inside. But they stay there, scared of the fire, so he quickly spindashes to blow dirt and dust into the flame and douse out a viable exit. They make a quick escape, and wiping the sweat from his brow, Sonic turns back to Robotnik and runs after him.

.

.

[Act 2]

_There are no power rings in this level either, and the player should be careful not to lose any in possession._

_Like Angel Island Zone Act 2, the entire background is aflame._

Just when Sonic gains on Robotnik, Robotnik starts his afterburners and suddenly blasts off. He flashes away to a ball of light shooting far out to sea. Sonic is left in a cloud of smoke. He curses Robotnik but keeps running. "Through the burning fields, Sonic enters the fire in the forest. He jumps over burning trees and brush and runs past falling trees and branches. He carefully but quickly descends cliffs and drops, checking his speed down hills. He goes through a few blazing forests as he crosses more hills and valleys, keeping top speed to speedily run across any rivers or bays he may meet.

He finally reaches the beach itself. It is tremendous, with a very long, smooth slope. Crashing at the bottom in the dark are massive waves up to five stories high. While awesome to see, he notices a floating truck a little ahead of him on the sand. As he comes closer, he sees it's carrying more roboticizers and he angrily speeds up. Then there's an explosion from the back of the truck bed which sends something large flying out. The capsules barely budge. Sonic blinks and looks up, seeing the silhouette of a hostile shape falling ahead of him. Just before it lands, it blasts out fire from its back, stopping it in place. It then accelerates to just below Sonic's pace until it's within range.

.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

It looks like the axe-toting robot from _Mushroom Hill Zone_ (in _Sonic & Knuckles)_. Like its predecessor, it has no legs and instead uses a small jet engine on its back to hover and move. This one's engine is more powerful, scorching the sand white hot with a constant column of fire, while black smoke fires out the other side with machine-gun speed. Its torso and two arms are armored and painted black, but it is not camouflaged under the moon and vibrant starlight. The first arm carries a cannon; the other, the axe.

This is a running battle, but Sonic shouldn't get too close to the exhaust, which can hurt him. Even the sand being burnt can hurt him, but only briefly as they rapidly cool down because they are moving. The robot will also move from in front to behind Sonic, but it does both differently. To get behind, it drops its thrust which causes it to gently fall down as well as back, before keeping steady pace there. To get back ahead, it drops its thrust more quickly this time, and then lets out an afterburner which quickly accelerates it like a rocket at Sonic. In both cases, Sonic needs to jump to avoid the exhaust. But the back-to-front maneuver is more dangerous, and he actually needs to bounce off of the robot for the height as the exhaust is up to four times larger than on the front-to-back.

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Its attacks with its cannon are:

- Firing ahead of Sonic a small iron ball which expands spikes upon contacting the ground. (If the robot is behind Sonic, it'll shoot above Sonic in a dangerous arc and continue to roll ahead of him before friction starts to slow it down.)

- And firing four shots of napalm which explode upon contacting the ground, leaving a spot of fire to jump over.

Its attacks with its axe are:

- moving closer to Sonic and then chopping a wide vertical arc (sometimes with a second swing forwards),

- and throwing its axe at Sonic. It must then go and yank it out, whether it's ahead or behind, leaving open a chance to counterattack it.

Twelve hits causes it to malfunction for a second before its jet engine suddenly explodes. The rest of the robot is rocketed away into the giant waves. Sonic then speeds up to catch up with the truck.

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**Quickened Quay** [Act 1] (2/10)

_There are power rings here. There are also enemies here._

The grassy hills turn into shrub land and rocky hillsides, with so little flora that the wildfire has nothing to snuff out. Ahead is the large harbor lit up in dotted lines of small lights becoming clearer on the approach. Sonic then comes to the only road on the island, of fresh asphalt with iron lighted guardrails. Sonic catches up to the truck and jumps over the bed wall onto the floor. He bounces up and down in the back, hitting the buttons for all three capsules, freeing the animals inside. The land animals hesitate seeing the moving road, but brace themselves and jump off anyway. He then spin attacks the small robotic cockpit and causes it break in four hits. The truck suddenly falls front-first into the ground and Sonic is flung off whether he jumped or not. He keeps moving as the truck flips a few times before exploding, sending it flying into the air flipping, then landing and spinning around, skidding in a wall of flames.

The road leads into Robotnik's seaport. He passes rows of stacked cargo crates and cement buildings to the long metal pier over the shallows. He enters a mechanized area of bare iron scaffolding and a long circuit of conveyor belts as slopes and bridges to accelerate on. He goes through processing plants and short hallways of corrugated steel. He climbs the buildings and leaps over wide canals, as well as climb cranes and use their height for additional distance. Soon he'll come across Robotnik's large drilling ships. He can run on their decks and explore a little inside (most of the hatchs are locked shut), or run along the dock's edge.

He comes to the entrance of a large hangar at the water's edge, with a crowd of robots including Egg Robos waiting for him. Breaking through them, he enters and sees a big, empty barge starting to depart. He jumps up the boxes and then onto a crane. He leaps onto the deck and stops moving. He waits as the ship starts to leave the hangar. After a few seconds, he hears an alarm sound on the ship.

All of the ship's sailor robots come out to attack in a constant stream from the doors and hatches on deck. A few more from the hangar jump and climb onto the deck up the sides. Some of these are Egg Robos. Sonic fights two to three badniks at a time out of twenty-five to thirty in total. After twenty seconds the ship leaves the hangar. _But the Act doesn't end until all of the robots are destroyed._

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[Act 1 Boss]

The deck suddenly lowers and pulls apart its two halves. A deeper mechanical whirr comes from within as a large elevator brings up a tank! This boss, as a super-thick pyramid of armor and steel, is invulnerable. Its armor cannot be destroyed in any way. Its widely domed head turns at Sonic, showing four weapons: a cannon, a mortar launcher, a machine gun, and a missile launcher.

Its attacks are:

- shooting a powerful explosive shell at Sonic (which blows up burnt pits into the deck),

- launching up mortar bombs that land in a splash of fire,

- unloading two seconds of a stream of bullets,

- and firing homing missiles that track Sonic for two seconds.

The deck is long enough that Sonic can run into its far range and think out a plan. He should be careful at the edge as the guardrails are short. A rogue shot could easily knock him back over the rails to get keelhauled. The tank is very slowly moving forward (Sonic could be crushed if he stood blissfully careless against its front). Sonic can jump on it without being harmed, however. Behind it, the cannon can't hit him and the machine gun doesn't turn much while it's firing. If he's careful of the explosions, he can let the tank's own missiles and mortars bomb its own back, pushing it forward. Once it's close to the edge, it will stop and move in reverse, but again very slowly. Its weight crumples the railings. In about sixteen total pushes_,_ it leans over and slides off the edge. With a deep sploosh and a big splash the tank plunges into the ocean and the ship goes merrily on.

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[Act 2]

_The level has a passing resemblance to Oil Ocean, if it was tied in a block-shaped knot._

A large oil rig base stands on giant stilts above the wide ocean in the late hours of night. The ship arrives and stops by a low dock at the side of a giant reinforced column.

Climbing up the simple slopes and platforms of the dock, which lead up the pylons to the the metal scaffolding and catwalks on the underside of the main structure. Through a few dark pipe-lined tunnels lit by orange lights, he comes to the wide bottom 'floor' of the base. It is a labyrinth of catwalks and water tubes that jet him from side to side and floor to floor. He occasionally enters interior areas with many robots, rings and electronics. In the center is the large drill tube leading to the small building at the very top.

He rolls around for a while, and then in the upper areas starts platforming across roofs, pipes and oil tanks. He returns to the center and runs up the hanging staircase into the drill control room. It's deactivated. Moving on, he sees a sturdy launch platform and a small hangar that could hold two space ships. It holds only one, confirmed by an ashen blast mark on the platform. Sonic looks at the ship and contemplates how he could learn to fly it when suddenly a rocket is launched from behind and so he jumps out of the way just at the spaceship blows up! The explosion blows apart the hangar's walls and ceiling. Sonic lands in front of Egg Hunter.

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[Act 2 Boss]

As they fight, Egg Hunter slowly moves backwards, out of the hangar area and into the drill control room..

Egg Hunter fights the same as before with some improvements:

- Its pulse gun and missiles are fired 150% as fast, and the missile explosions have a slightly larger splash radius.

- If its punch connects, it follows into a 5-hit combination attack.

- Occasionally it dashes the other way, towards Sonic himself, and tries to grab him. If it does grab Sonic, Sonic can't move as it throws him down, making him roll helplessly across the floor while it shoots at him. If it misses its grab, it stumbles for a moment, giving Sonic a chance to attack.

After fourteen hits, it stands still, visibly weakened. Sonic must eventually approach it, when it then suddenly steps in and grabs him. Before he can react, he's thrown to the corner of the room where a hatch immediately opens before him. He falls into a small chamber below that connects to the top of the drill shaft. The hatch shuts and locks above him, and he then hears a crash. He looks out of a thick chain-link fence to see Egg Hunter flying out above the oil rig. It then fires missiles at each tank and with deafening blasts explosions mushroom out of each other. A wall of fire rises into the sky behind Egg Hunter, who turns around and stares at Sonic.

Sonic has about 5 seconds to jump through a hole and drop down the drill shaft. After 5 seconds, the oil rig's supports start bending the entire platform before breaking apart. The shaft snaps and the rest plunge into the water. Egg Hunter won't move the entire time and watches as Sonic gets trapped and drown. That is, if he waits more than 5 seconds to escape.

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**Crumbling City** [Act 1] (2/11)

_Strangely, there are both power rings and enemies here._

Sonic lands on the drill bit at the bottom after a long, long fall (wall jumping to slow down). The drill wobbles under the ceiling of a large cavern. The stone walls are lit by bright electric lamps. Below is a thick pool of oil, lightly boiling with gooey bubbles popping sizzling drops around. He sees a corridor in the wall on the edge of the pool, but it's too far. For a moment, Sonic waits.

Shortly, a shock wave from the oil rig's final explosion above finally makes it through the tunnel into the cave with a boom. Stalactites crisply crack off the ceiling and fall into the pool, bridging with the rounded stalagmites a way across. Sonic platforms, avoiding the bubbles, and reaches the corridor.

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Just as he comes to the complete steel tunnel that is obviously Robotnik's, a great rumbling comes from the oil cave when the ceiling suddenly caves in. The drill is pushed headfirst deep into the oil with the drill shaft broken into pieces. Before the debris flies into the tunnel, a door automatically shuts in front of Sonic. So he goes the other way, which stretches on for a short while. At the end it simply opens into a new cave. A very large one. A gargantuan, truly monstrous cave hundreds of stories high, its ceiling so dark Sonic almost thought he was seeing the night sky again.

Sonic then makes out what at first seemed like an intricate web of giant stalagmites. They are actually the buildings of a massive ancient underground city, almost perfectly intact. It is made of stone and metals with austere decoration and narrow intermixed spaces. There are unified flows and themes, with function forming size and grandiosity. For example, a row of houses have small square windows randomly set across while a public building has very many thin tall windows on a similiar wall. The architecture is somehow... malicious. The floor is the flat, featureless stone roofs of other buildings and the cave-rock ground at the very bottom, with a bare metal grating fearlessly set straight over gaping pits of darkness. And that darkness creeps through the alleys and windows, into the edges of whatever engraved decoration there is. It did not consume Sonic whole only because of the small orbs of light that are caged in the tiny lanterns hanging off the blank walls. Those orbs are not electric, nor are they gas. They float and shiver in the cage, eerily seeming alive. Sonic notices there are also a few electric lights from large metal spikes slammed into the walls. Probably Robotnik's.

In the very middle of the giant cave is what looked like a stalagmite most of all. It is a conical citadel with a central tower gently rising up into the darkness. Sonic looks at it and gets a hunch that's his destination. Catching him think this, Sonic then thinks, "Why am I here? I should be saving Tails right now, who could be anywhere in space! Is that why Egg Hunter threw me in here, to stop me?! Well I'm stuck anyway."

Sonic is then reminded of his other recent spelunking expeditions. "Hmm. I wonder... is this an echidna city?" Rubbing his chin he figures there's only one way to find out.

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He jumps out and onto the street of the dead city. He follows the road, changing directions as he reaches buildings of different heights. In spots he can wall-jump up or down the narrow alley walls between close buildings. He can even enter some of them, but their interiors are completely barren of everything and are uncomfortably narrow and cramped.

Every once in a while, Sonic sees one of two things. The first being what seems like a person's silhouette running away just at the edge of sight. The second is seeing the scattered remains of badniks, or seeing the badniks being attacked, stabbed, and ripped apart by an unfamiliar type of small robot with sickle hands. Once the badnik is destroyed, they only stare at Sonic. Even alone, they stare at Sonic, and don't attack.

After exploring the mostly harmless streets, Sonic climbs the long staircase to the great entrance of the fortress. But the entrance is sealed with stone... and standing guard in front of the wall is a large statue. It slowly starts to move.

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[Act 1 Boss]

The statue is an automaton, its stone body sliding on a metal skeleton. It resembles a giant mantis with two large scythes on its arms. Its smoothly cut body is engraved with runic symbols and fiery design. Despite its size, it is rather quick. Its weight also makes it rather strong. However, its legs are tall enough for Sonic to roll under it to the other side.

Its attacks are:

- slowly approaching Sonic and dropping vertical slashes if he's too close (Sonic must quickly turn and run out of the way),

- dashing at Sonic and then swiping a horizontal cut (Sonic can jump or duck),

- standing still, swinging its arms faster and faster until a wave of 3-6 air blades fly at Sonic (Sonic can jump and roll between them),

- from a distance, striking a rising slash three times, with each strike causing sparks to turn into a fireball, and all three fireballs revolving around in the same vertical circle. This circle of three fireballs shoots at Sonic as soon as the first fireball is made (Sonic can jump through the gaps between the fireballs).

- At low health (three hits remaining or less), it occasionally climbs the wall using its scythes and stands off of the wall. For a moment it stands, charging power, and bending into its legs. It then leaps off of the wall high into the air then crashes its two scythes together, launching diagonally down at Sonic a wave of shrinking air blades (Sonic can run between them as they shrink with distance) followed by a massive fireball (Sonic has to run far out of the way) before falling back down (it can crush Sonic if it lands on him with one of its four legs).

_As a reminder, when Sonic dies he dies according to what hit him. In this battle for example, he can be burnt to death, crushed, and cut into pieces._

Each hit cracks open its stone body. After four hits, the stone breaks apart entirely, leaving the bare metal frame covering the robot's machinery. It gains speed but loses strength. As mentioned, after five hits it starts using the wall-jump special attack. After eight hits, the machinery suddenly halts and bursts into black flames. It collapses into pieces, leaving only rubble and small pieces of a jet-black stone.

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[Act 2]

Sonic can start climbing the citadel from the footholds the mantis statue made. He reaches the second story and from there wall-jump up flying buttresses and jump onto and across roofs. Strangely, all of the windows and doorways are sealed shut with solid sandstone, so he has no choice but to ascend from the outside. As he does, he notices the building is designed in a way that mixes the masonry of the Torch Temple ruins and the hollow ironclad style of the Mechanix Seal ruins. The iron is rusty and the stone is old and cracked, and in many parts the platforms or bridges Sonic are on collapse under his weight. In addition, the small sickle robots rapidly crawl up the walls with their blades before making leap attacks at Sonic. A few of Robotnik's robots may attack him as well. As Sonic climbs and sees more of the cave city, he also receives less of its dim accumulated light and the path above becomes increasingly dark, although there are still lanterns every so often.

At the fifteenth floor, the top of the citadel splits into two towers supporting one central, larger one. Finally Sonic can go inside, but the rooms are bare of nothing but tiled floors, columned walls and open window spaces. The towers are connected by bridges on many floors, which is convenient as all three have sections of significant damage that would completely block Sonic's progress otherwise. Sickle-bots hide beneath the stairwells and chase Sonic as he climbs the stairs. A few tumble down the steps from the opposite direction, and while they're destructible, it's better to jump over and let them knock the chasers behind for a second.

Every other floor in the skylobby of the main tower there is a large relief piece, illustrating respectively:

- a great fire,

- a detailed and chaotic war scene,

- the designs of the sickle robot, the mantis statue, and many other types Sonic didn't see in person yet,

- mountains of dead echidnas lying at the feet of an unknown figure, whose image was chipped away by someone long ago,

- a battle scene of a handful of echidnas, wearing elaborate armor and striking poses,

- one particular echidna dramatically clutching a graphically exaggerated sword wound,

- a large explosion, depicted as many concentric spheres of fire,

- and Mechanix, on a background of elaborate circuitry-like lines, very similar to how the advanced technology looked in the Mechanix Seal core room.

The two support towers end and Sonic climbs a stairwell in the central tower. It suddenly ends, broken off, so Sonic exits through a hole on the wall to a platform on the outside. He ascends the iron bar-and-metal mesh scaffolding on the outside wall of the tower, carefully platforming over huge drops and off of falling floors. In a few spots, he can take a shortcut if he wall-jumps off of and up vertical walls.

The final floor is hewn of marble, as are the circumferential columns and the dome above. The only light comes from the only hole in the floor: a third of the room's diameter and located in the center, containing layers of parallel gratings. Underneath those in a chamber below is a blazing fire, still burning so hot that the gratings above are dangerous to touch.

Deflecting its glowing red light is another statue, marble this time and stationary for now. It looks like a beefy anthropoid, with a short head and legs but thick arms and torso. Its forearms are buzz saws.

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[Act 2 Boss]

_In this battle, holding up or down will let Sonic strafe around the room.__ If he somehow flies off the top of the tower from inertia and being positioned between the columns, he will end up dying with a splat._

The background is an abyss of darkness, with dim images of spleothems on the cavern walls and ceiling and the speckles of light caged in the city below. In the foreground, the light of the fire pit flashes about in high intensity from the large volume of flames, flashing jagged shadows onto the warriors and battleground.

The saws suddenly start spinning and whirr to life. The statue raises its forearms parallel to the floor and level with Sonic's head. The statue raises and the robot slowly starts to lumber towards Sonic. It will constantly approach Sonic until it corners him against a column, and do so even if Sonic jumps over its head to its other side (it turns around, quite simply). For the first three seconds after it leaves the fire pit, its body is too hot to touch. After it cools, it can only be damaged by a hit on the head. Hitting its body does make it fall a step backwards, however. Unfortunately, the columns around the room are too close together for the robot to eventually be knocked off the tower.

Its attacks are:

- drawing back its arms before throwing them overhead and dropping them onto the floor, causing a flash of sparks at a low angle,

- pushing the two saws together, spraying a trickling waterfall of burning hot sparks over Sonic (he can jump back or roll closer under them)

- firing out one of its buzz saw forearms from its upper arms while connected by a chain link, out to 4.5 times its former arm length, and then reversing the saw direction causing it to zip back across the floor before reconnecting (Sonic has to duck or roll under the initial launch and then jump over the return).

_Again, if Sonic has no rings and is hit by the buzz saw, he will meet a painfully disturbing end._

It is actually that last attack, the arm launcher, which has force sufficient to destroy a column if it lands into one. Two columns gone makes enough space so that Sonic can knock the robot off of the tower if he chooses. But if five columns in a row are gone, or twelve columns overall, the roof will collapse onto both the robot, destroying it, and Sonic, killing him instantly.

After eight hits, this robot also self-destructs in black flames. The impact of falling off of the citadel tower is equal to eight hits, so if that happens then the robot is also destroyed by that means.

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Sonic then hears a sound of blowing wind, and jumps when he sees an echidna rapidly glide in and roll to a stop across the floor. It's Zaga.

"You must have come from the oil chamber. I've been waiting for you."

"You knew I'd come here?" Sonic asks, suspicious. "How?"

"After I recovered, I saw many tools of alien machinery. I disabled a few and studied them, and I assumed they are the make of someone from your time. That is to say, 'Robotnik'."

"Yes, it seems he's been in this area for a while. But that doesn't mean I'd come here," Sonic argues.

"No, my friend. It does mean that and exactly that. For you see, this place was once the capital of echidna civilization, Ka'ralei. It is where we created Mechanix! And it is my home!" Zaga declares, rather solemnly at that. "Whenever Mechanix is awake, it has always been fate for the heroes that stop him to first assemble here, where it all began."

"I guess it's just us then, haha." Sonic then wonders about it, and looks around at the city. "Then, is there something here we can use to stop Mechanix?" He turns to Zaga excitedly, asking, "Do you know where it is?!"

Zaga frowns. "I am sorry, Sonic, there is nothing left. I explored every option from what remained... but there are not many remains."

He turns away, his face darkening with sorrow. Sonic is quiet for a moment, but after a thought he asks, "Were your people at war?"

Zaga turns around, surprised and somewhat horrified. "How did you know that?"

Sonic laughs, causing Zaga to ease up a little. "It's all over the walls, man! I mean, the reliefs. Here and... somewhere else, too. I keep on seeing death, violence, fire... a massive explosion... and Mechanix. Those must have been actual events, right? Really important, too?"

Sonic kicks the robot rubble (or looks over the side if the robot fell off), and says, "And what's with all these deadly gargoyles?! I only know one reason why anyone makes robots: to kill other people efficiently. If they're still here _now_ there must have been a bazillion of these things in your time!"

Zaga was looking absently at the rooftops. "Yes... Yes, you are perfectly correct. Yes. We were at war with each other. This city amongst all the others, in the Skyless Time."

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He looks at Sonic seriously for a second, and then smiles and snorts at self-reflection. "Come, Sonic, shall I tell you the reason for Mechanix's creation? It would be a short tale, brief enough to explain what you have seen, and understand the great threat that is Mechanix."

Sonic smirks, thinking "A short tale yeah uh huh," and answers, "Well sure, Zaga! I've been pretty curious, but if you already know everything c'mon and tell me!"

"Very well, comfort yourself as I elocute. *ahem* The echidna civilization is ancient by even its own standards, lasting tens of millenia and reaching the edges of heaven at its zenith. That time was the Great Era, and it ended in apocalyptic cataclysm a century before my own time. To survive, all the billions of echidnas had to hide away forever, as the open air of the world burnt with fire. Even now I do not know if all seven nations survived effectively... that is, in my time I could not know. As it seems, Ka'ralei... and all the others... could not survive to your time..."

"They may have killed each other. The council of elders from each of the seven cities had become bitterly corrupt, selfish and violent by the time I was born. They had always blamed each other for having some connection or another to the apocalypse, and rejected each others' peoples as being true echidnas. It was stupid, but our government was constitutionally oligarchic and dictatorial... and even now I suspect the cursed event which chased us into the dirt was the monstrous consequence of some projection a stupid fool with power felt to make... Imprisoning us in darkness and ignorance... demanding the morality of hypocrites and killers. They went mad talking self-importantly to each other, judging heathenous the petty acts of commoners. When the people asked for reason and voice, the elders screamed in fury for cleansing by fire and sin sacrifices of blood. A war did begin... but I will return to this matter."

"Let me now speak of Mechanix. He was created by geniuses who knew the edge of our knowledge, however finitely rescued from total global destruction. They crafted his material form with the function of innately absorbing the energy of the overworld, crafted an artificial mind advanced enough to devise a method for global restoration yet restrained enough to seek no harmful intention, and perfected a mechanical body of the strength and endurance to withstand the execution of global restoration. Consequently, it was a tremendously powerful entity, and certainly the most significant one in my time."

"But the elders... as soon as they saw it was functioning, they ordered research and experimentation to cease. They snatched it away before we could finish the behavior controls, and knowingly as well, I declare. Naturally explaining it away as the urgency of a return to the sun..."

"Ka'ralei declared war on numerous other countries, a few of which who were already at war with more others. It was already a bad time... epidemics, famines, droughts, and the worst being air blocks, where people choke and die by the hundreds on the spot... But the elders had no one but each other to play with their puppet societies of living people strangling from the chains on their fingers. Ka'ralei used Mechanix. They broke his controls and used him to kill. To massacre. To obliterate. Mechanix slaughtered tens of thousands of people, destroyed large zones of other cities. Armies raised to defeat him were demolished in a day.

"In retaliation they created the war tools, which invaded in the thousands. They killed many of us before we made our own war tools to fight back. Mechanix wasn't used for defense. No, the elders were safe up in this tower, it is better for Mechanix to continue killing elsewhere. Devils."

"History had turn its final spiral towards sheer screaming hell when, seeing certain death, my spirit came aflame with righteousness. I had to end it all, kill all the elders, destroy Mechanix, build a safer machine, and revive the freedom in the depths of the echidna heart. With clear mind and purpose, my voice shone through the lies with justice and I wrought upon the masters a glorious revolution to reclaim their souls. They called us children, then traitors, then monsters, and as we came to the citadel in the millions they finally feared for their lives. They sent Mechanix to kill us all. It was a desperate battle, but in the end I subdued Mechanix and disabled him. We sealed him far away in ways we thought were permanent at the time..."

"I quickly went with my comrades to start the operation that would overthrow the elders, when someone betrayed me and knocked me unconscious from behind. Some fool who let a question of the enemies' ideas stay in his head. I reawakened to find myself midway through the very rare punishment of temporal exile for 'treason beyond treason'. They had me paralyzed, mocked me with shallow narrations, and froze me alive with some ancient energy seal technique, much weaker than the one we used on Mechanix. Still helpless, I fell into a dreamless sleep that faded into the streams of time."

He relaxes his posture. "While my seal weakened over time, Mechanix's seal was more permanent than death, contained in a machine that actively resisted all possibilities of its material reawakening. If Robotnik can surpass that, we must henceforth assume he is fully aware of Mechanix's potential and seeks to attain it. He is an incredible threat. But Mechanix is worse. If he has the capacity to restore the earth, he has the power to destroy it."

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Zaga seems to reflect on this danger as he stays quiet. Sonic breathes a sigh of relief. He then breathes a sigh of frustration.

"Damn it, this isn't good. We can't let Robotnik use Mechanix, he'll definitely destroy the world as soon as he can. But they're in outer space by now! And we're waaay underground. We need to get back above ground... cross the sea somehow... search Robotnik's bases for other space ships... damn it!"

Zaga turns and says, "Outer space? Do you mean, the heavens? By Zexa..."

Sonic replies, "Yeah, space. Well, we should get going-"

"Wait," Zaga says, and then walks over to the fire pit. "I was caught up in the past and nearly forgot. There is a way."

He waves his hand in coordinated movements over the pit, and the fire seems to react, blowing around below. "This is the eternal fire of Ka'ralei. It is the symbol of the echidna fate, the symbol of heroes and mad rulers alike. It has true power, and the elders transformed it into a gateway. A gateway that connects to the ground before Mechanix, wherever he is."

Sonic's incredulous. "What? That sounds a lot like-" Zaga then waves his arms away from the fire pit and suddenly a thin tongue of flame burns through the air out of the grates and around in the air into a ring of fire. The enclosure within turns hazy with heat, and the mirage distorts into a smoky cloud that then took on new color and shape. It forms the image of another dark cave. Zaga lets out a "hmm," as Sonic scratches his head.

"Are you sure that's working? Neat, but, seems like it's just showing another cave."

Zaga shakes his head. "The rock walls are different from any cave I've seen, and I've lived my life in caves. But we should be seeing Mechanix directly. The gateway is energy-based, so there must be a distortion in the energy field..."

Sonic rubs his chin and shrugs. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. This is some magic but if it's quick and works I'm all for it. It does work, right? We can use this to find Robotnik and stop him and Mechanix!"

Zaga smiles, shaking off his thoughts. "Yes, certainly! I used just this to surprise Mechanix and disable him before."

"Good, let's do it!" Sonic says and runs at the portal all of a sudden. He jumps into it and finds himself hit by a wall of freezing cold air, and a much harder, if less irregular rock floor. "W-w-well it w-works, Z-z-z...Z-Zaga?!"

Sonic turns to sees a ring of electric arcs on this end, with the enclosure turning cloudy.

"Sonic!" Zaga yells out through the sound of the crackles and a strange muffling. "I thought this might happen! The distortion is too strong, I'll come out in chops of meat if I jump now!"

Sonic is amusedly disgusted. "What? Ew! But wait, what will you do?"

"It seems we cannot fight together yet! I will search the other cities. You must keep going! Defeat Robotnik! Destroy Mechanix!"

The clouds then fade into haze which dissipated into nothing, showing the rock wall ahead. The ring of electricity then near-instantly zips close into a small ring and makes a final pop.

Sonic breathes out through shivers and turns around. "Okay. He's here. Robotnik is here, Mechanix is here, and Tails... Tails is here. This is it! No more running around, Robotnik!"

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**Assimilated Asteroid** [Act 1] (2/12)

The dark stone is cut clean and straight in many areas, revealing the criss-crossing diagonal lines of the metal crystals within, but there are no speleothems. Instead, the larger cave spaces are connected by smoothly-cut tunnels that orient themselves in every direction, including diagonal and straight verticals. As he passes electric lamps set in even intervals, he finds himself crossing steel scaffolds and following series of wires. When they lead him to mines with drill machines autonomously and continuously digging and storing ore, he realizes Robotnik is active here. Of course, he also runs into many robots, including shielded guards and miners that turn their diamond pickaxes on Sonic. A few areas also have totem-shaped robots as stationary turrets and moving spike bots (whose spikes aren't fake and bouncy like the ones from _Marble Garden Zone_).

While the tunnels are easy to pass through, the caverns typically require more platforming (as in Crystal Caves) and fighting, especially the mine caverns. In the mines, Sonic has to cross a maze of platforms and machines, sometimes climbing ladders or crossing ceiling rungs due to the unjumpable distances involved. He may even need to spindash under the drills at the right moment to get through. Eventually, he'll find his path going more upwards than anywhere else, and it eventually breaches the surface.

Above the low hills of ice and stone is a great field of black, with stars carelessly sprayed across it in nebulae and galaxies. Stretching into space is the curvature of the planet Mobius, the grand colors of ocean blue and earth brown in speckles behind an embroidery of white clumps, sheets, and spirals. He realizes he is on an asteroid.

The asteroid's surface is very bumpy, rocky, and hilly, and interrupted by open-air mines that dig deep quarries back into the rock. There are also a few standing structures: power substations, robot barracks, or storage garages; with continuously smooth manifolds for walls and floors, often connected to small stretches of roads to other structures. If he keeps aware of hurdles and hazards, Sonic can reach top speed and keep a steady course on the highest points of the land. If he's not careful, he may end up in a loop-de-loop that sends him back down into the caves.

Tall stadium lights stand in the distance over a dry sea of smooth rock. There stands Robotnik's base, the size of a small city. He makes his way through the aforementioned terrain before coming to a single road leading to the main gate. After fending off robots attacking from oncoming vehicles, he hears the base's alarms go off. Just when he stops at the large reinforced metal slabs which made the doors of the main gate, a large humanoid robot vaults over the top and lands in front of Sonic.

.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

The robot is a miniature version of Robotnik's Death Egg Suit (from _Sonic 2_), about half its original size (and twice Sonic's).

It has the same attacks but they're all slightly improved:

- walking forward with spiked hands twice as fast as its predecessor (it's also shorter, so Sonic will not be safe underneath the arms as before),

- launching into the air to lock-on and crush Sonic (this is three times as fast and lets out a small shock wave),

- dropping bombs from a backpack next to the jetpack, this time while hovering over Sonic to specifically target him,

- and firing out its arms as rockets to hit Sonic from long distance, before returning and connecting them to the body. It does this six times instead of only two, and more rapidly, too.

Eight hits sets off a chain reaction, the explosions rending the legs off the body, which falls and topples over. The head then opens as an Egg Robo crawls out. It does so quickly, just before the suit suffers one last, giant explosion that blows open the gate (and can hurt Sonic if he stands too close).

The Egg Robo attacks Sonic, but it's just a standard one and is defeated in two hits.

.

.

[Act 2]

Sonic enters the base. The alarm continues with spinning and pulsing klaxon lights while the wailing horn klaxon ceases. Sonic dashes down brightly lit roads lined with defensive robots even up the lamp poles. The stadium lights blare down from ahead washing out every shadow and mixing with the yellow guardrail sidelights and the blue street lamps. Stars of red and blue lights dot the heavily industrialized base with its purely mechanical buildings and infrastructure, pipes, scaffolds, tanks, fences, silos, factories and control rooms. The road cuts off into the dense platforming sections of these very places, defended by sentry turrets and robots tucked away in every corner for ambush.

He reaches the edge of the base and enters a small building with heavy security. It connects to a monorail station, in which Sonic enters a car and activates it. After a few sparks by the capacitor at the end of the rail, his car is then launched down the rail. The hills and pile drivers slide by in the background.

Suddenly, a hologram appears from a terminal in the front side of the car. It's Robotnik.

.

"Ah, how convenient of you to find an alternate means to chase me. For once, I don't need to provide for you."

Sonic doesn't care about the remark. "Show me where Tails is. Now."

Not missing a beat, Robotnik rejoins, "No. Are you not my enemy? I could activate that rail car's self-desruct button instead. It would be easy, and to be honest I am quite tempted."

Sonic is still unfazed. "Right, you want to make me suffer. You're doing that just fine, being your usual annoying self. But it doesn't matter. I'm coming for you, Robotnik. I'm ending your petty game."

The camera then switched to one in a horizontal missile silo, with a gargantuan rocket on a charred track being checked over by hundreds of robots. Sonic inhales, already recognizing the objective of destroying it.

Robotnik's voice continues. "This is Flying Fury. Its warhead is of equal strength to one hundred thousand megatons of dynamite. It will incinerate the continent you Mobians have most infested, and eliminate most of the other cretins with fallout radiation. The warhead is 100% failsafe. In addition,"

The camera changes to one inside a narrow compartment in the rocket. Under dim maintenance lights, chained to a group of pipes, is Tails, unconscious and beaten.

Robotnik speaks with pressing schadenfreude. "Your cute little butt buddy is locked inside it and is going to be the first one to die."

Sonic is furious. Robotnik never stooped so low, and he's doing it just to spite Sonic. He's steaming, clenching his fists and teeth. He calms only when he thinks that Tails' rescue is at finally at hand.

The camera returns to Robotnik's face, calm and disinterested. "It's so unfair that billions of Mobians will die." Sonic stares at Robotnik, disgusted to hear him say such a string of words. Robotnik continues, "Why do I have to suffer so much work just to live alone in peace?"

Sonic curses Robotnik but he only laughs. He laughs a little more than he should, as if what he said was some great subtle joke.

"By the way, I am going to kill you after all." Sonic's eyes choked wide on the first thought and a rush of adrenaline made him spin attack through the layered glass windows and fall onto the hard rocks below. The monorail car subsequently explodes.

Sonic looks at the burning remains still scooting down the rail in a ball of flames. "He's more serious now. Damn it, I should have figured he was holding back all those times."

He thinks of the Death Egg, but then he is suddenly reminded of the core. "I should have known how insane he is."

.

_Half of the level remains. _

Sonic runs up and down the hills and passes smaller bases, a few of which lead back inside the asteroid. Egg Robos now join the attack, and even the mines' drill robots turn from their jobs to attack Sonic.

Underground, he comes to a large cave bisected by the mechanical wall of an underground facility. Braving the turrets he spindashes through the main door. The hallways in the base are brightly lit with shiny waxed floors and complicated electronic-ridden walls. He plows through waves of robot fireteams, goes up and down sloped corridors and crosses steel walkways through mines. The motion-detecting doors swoosh far before him, allowing a constant speed. Two or three times he finds himself passing blinking neon signs into construction areas, platforming across girders and pipelines.

Exiting that base he follows a large pipeline through tunnels and a chasm before it rises a slope to ground level. There it connects to the back of a large cement-and-girder wall of a large complex. Next to it is a large and loud atmospheric air generator, which leads into the building with a metal ventilation shaft. Sonic pops a hole open in it but is blown away by a gusty cloud of condensed air. The air continues to blow out afterwards, but much less forcefully and with a whistle. Sonic enters as a spinball, only to find the air pressure inside still strong enough to roll him down the shaft and through a vent into a long utility tunnel, with a flat roof and two parallel walkways above a dark, dusty floor, under long neon lights.

As he runs down the montonous tunnel, he finds it somewhat dilapidated with sharp busted pipes and sporadic electric arcs. Before too long, he then hears the muffled broadcast of Robotnik's voice, followed by a series of separately located mechanical sounds of such volume as to rumble and shake Sonic if he stands still. He then hears another rumbling, one of higher frequency, coming down the rails at the bottom floor of the tunnel. He hears its weight and speed, so he runs faster. A purple glow spreads and brightens the passing walls as a maintenance robot scoots up behind Sonic, catching up to his speed.

.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

_This is a running boss so Sonic should be especially careful not to lose rings. They won't bounce more than once before flying off screen._

The robot looks much like a train, with a cylindrical, mechanical body (if somewhat shorter) and a sharp nose. It levitates magnetically over the tracks. It also generates a purple electric shield (the source of its light) that will hurt Sonic if he falls back and ends up touching it. However, as he runs, Sonic can jump between the floor with the rail and the floor with the walkways. Although he won't get hit by the shield on the walkways, the robot holds out an arm with an electrified spike slightly behind the edge of its shield at the 'nose'.

If Sonic stays on one floor or another for 20 seconds, it slowly extends a third arm holding one of three weapons:

- a rapidly clipping pair of industrial scissors,

- a blowtorch which fires for 3 seconds, forcing Sonic to change floors,

- a wrench-like claw waits behind Sonic and yanks out the first broken pipe that passes by. It then tries to shank Sonic twice before throwing it at him.

Sonic can destroy these arms by spin attacking behind the weapons and bouncing. Each is destroyed in four hits.

The tunnel's hazards remain as before, and it can be discerned the walkway has more pipes (spikes) and the railway more wires (electric arcs). Every 15 seconds at their speed, they come across big electric arcs that cover 75% of the vertical space of both floors. That is, Sonic will have to either jump on the walkway then over the top or drop below and roll under. These giant arcs inevitably crash into the robot, and after two collisions its shield destabilizes for 5 seconds. Sonic can then attack its 'head' directly for 4-5 hits per shield disruption.

After ten hits, the robot starts crackling with electricity and decelerates. Explosions start to pop off just before it leaves the edge of sight, and this continues to be heard for a few seconds until the thing explodes altogether.

.

.

**Flying Fury** [Act 1] (2/13)

The utility tunnel connects to a large complicated machine room that Sonic fortunately doesn't need to explore. He follows a path to a staircase that leads him to the tall main lobby of the launch base. He fights a crowd of robots against a wall of glass looking out on the asteroid before coming to an elevator. He goes in and it takes him up into the control room.

The control room is filled with computer screens and blinking lights. They monitor the rocket and it becomes apparent from the visuals that the missile's launch sequence has been activated. In a rush, Sonic flies down the room's main entrance, down a large staircase, across a cement bridge and into the silo itself. The way is blocked by a metal door, but without delay Sonic smashes into it four times before breaking through.

The silo is massive, three stories tall and maybe a dozen times that length. The inside walls are covered with blast-resistant steel girders and heavily protected industrial lights, all in a metallic orange. Sonic sprints down the catwalks in the middle of the room, under the sound of heavily burdened wheels, like tank treads, and the artificially voiced countdown that is approaching the final number.

He sees and passes the tail of the rocket. Its main body is purely black and smooth, with a few pinprick lights and Robotnik's name in red on white. It moves along a conveyor belt at the very bottom of the silo, but stops as Sonic reaches it. As he runs down its great length, an elevator slowly raises it and then arms load its wings into slots in the silo walls. The countdown ends.

The engine ignites, blasting out a column of white-hot fire. Sonic keeps his top speed as the giant mass starts to accelerate. If he falls behind, the wall of fire incinerates him instantly. If he holds on just a little longer, he finds a latch and breaks through it.

_The camera switches to show Sonic from inside Flying Fury._

Looking out of the door, Sonic sees the rocket constantly accelerate as it flies out of the silo and then thrusts away from the asteroid's surface. An alarm inside the rocket is going off, and a second door slides shut between the walls where the latch was broken off. Sonic waits no longer and keeps moving.

The inside of the Flying Fury are very confined sections of metal and machinery, divided by locked doors breakable in four hits each. There are even robots in a few sections, but they turn out to have animal cores. The animals cannot escape. Impatiently passing porticles showing the growing image of Mobius' atmosphere, Sonic eventually breaks down the door into the section that has Tails.

.

"Tails!" Sonic looks at his body, scuffled, bruised and cut. The blood is dry. His arms are bent uncomfortably behind him. He goes and spins through the chains, the buzzing sound causing Tails' ears to flick.

Sonic walks back around as he slowly wakes up. He opens his eyes, mumbles, "Son...Sonic? Where..."

Sonic waits as Tails blinks and slowly frees his numbed arms. He then turns to look out a porthole and suddenly becomes fully awake. He looks alarmed at Sonic, who holds out his hand and pulls him to his feet.

"Tails, we're running out of time. We're inside a rocket that's heading straight to Mobius, and it's really bad. You need to disable it! There's living Mobians on board..."

Tails holds his head and stumbles. "I... I'm not feeling so good, Sonic... Bring me to where I need to go..."

.

Sonic continues ahead, breaking down doors in the way as Tails slowly follows behind. After several segments, they come to one with a computer console lighting up the room. Tails goes to it and gets to work, rapidly flipping through screens of information and typing commands. While awake, he seems to be limping.

"I can redirect the course of the missile, that's it. The warhead isn't even in the system. But there's a jettison device we can use... This is Robotnik's, isn't it... He designed the warhead to ignite no matter what anyone does. Fortunately for us, it's not impact-based."

Tails turns to Sonic, suffering pain but remaining serious.

"I don't really know what's going on, but this _is_ serious. It'll take me a while to override Robotnik's controls. I might even be able to make the rocket land without killing any of us on board! But the ejection mechanism is all hardware. You need to get to the nose... from the outside... find and smash it. There's some kind of gravitational system on-board so you'll be fine but... I don't know why he'd make that..."

"He's right," Sonic thinks, "He must have expected me to stop it, which means... there's a trap ahead."

"I don't like this," he then says. "Be careful. I'll return as soon as I can."

Tails nods, but something flashes on the screen drawing his attention. By the time he turns around, Sonic is already gone.

.

Sonic finds another hatch and breaks out, back to the outside of the rocket, landing on the hull. The rocket closes in on Mobius' atmosphere, although it's angle of approach is being adjusted. Sonic simply runs down the shaft of the rocket until he reaches the nose.

.

Before he even sees the hatch a laser shot sizzles into the metal right beneath where he just stood. Standing in his way is none other than Mechanix. He has changed form slightly, being slightly larger with a more angular build. There seems to be a slight glow from between his overlaying body parts. He keeps his arm raised, unmoving, when Sonic hears Tails' voice over an intercom.

"Sonic! Can you hear me? The controls, they're locking up! Robotnik froze the controls! Sonic!"

Tails' voice then disappears in static and Sonic watches a fighter ship fly in next to the rocket. Through the glass of the cockpit he sees Robotnik, talking through a headpiece (with no helmet).

"Now Sonic, did you think I'd let you save the world from my Apocalypse yet again? Why would I give any hint of its existence to you, if it was not all a trap from the very beginning? Why, even Mechanix helped me set this together. I've been giving him Chaos Emeralds, you see. Three, actually! In addition to increasing his strength, it also makes him smarter it seems. He might even become a worthy interlocutor with all seven, much more worthy than you, who's stunned speechless."

Sonic knows he can't be heard. "Fuck you," he says. Narrows his eyes. "I'm going to destroy both of you."

"So naive," Robotnik shakes his head, apparently hearing him after all, or maybe lip reading him. "So _stupide_. You can only save things at the last minute, but you think that makes you a hero. Tsk. I'll kill you now."

.

.

[Act 1 Boss : MECHANIX LV.2 [ADEPT] & EGG HARRIER ]

_The rocket has three minutes until it enters the blue of the sky, and six minutes until it's impossible to further fix the rocket's trajectory with the warhead still on. Thirty more seconds and it explodes, a swift flash of white cleaning the screen and staying a blank white for a full 45 seconds before fading to rising clouds of fire._

The battlefield is the length of the rocket. If he goes all the way back, Sonic can fall off the back of the rocket and die, burnt to a crisp in the exhaust. If he tries to reach the nose, Mechanix will keep a steady position right in front of the hatch. He and Robotnik in his ship will otherwise follow Sonic and attack him.

Mechanix is now slightly faster than Sonic and can outrun him after a few seconds. His attacks switch out faster as well. He also attacks more accurately, and reacts quicker to Sonic's movements, particularly spindashes.

In addition to his previous attacks, he has new ones:

- a laser cannon that raises out of his left forearm and fires five flashing rods of energy,

- and a laser cannon that raises out of his right forearm and is charged with the left, firing a large beam that Sonic has to roll under.

After sixteen hits, Mechanix moves to the hatch and drops onto it, blurbing with radiating energy.

.

The Egg Harrier is a four-winged space fighter that usually stays at a distance as Mechanix attacks while occasionally firing. After every eleven of his attacks, he backs away as the Egg Harrier swoops in above the rocket and fires at a much closer, much less avoidable range. It uses three different weapons:

- a pair of regular energy pulse guns (the pulses are electric spheroids and fire in vertical pairs),

- a lock-on laser gun (locks on Sonic's position instantly, fires a half-second later, for 5 seconds or 10 beams total),

- and a heavy machine gun (generally follows Sonic's position).

It may appear either behind or in front of Sonic, and he should be careful not to be stuck between it and Mechanix (who does attack if Sonic gets too close to him). It also chases Sonic no matter where he is on the rocket, as Mechanix does. To attack it, Sonic has to jump and hit the cockpit itself.

After eight hits, the cockpit window is cracked and Robotnik backs off, staying in the background. He still fires but much less often than before.

.

Mechanix then flies off the rocket and towards the Egg Harrier. Robotnik is startled and exclaims, "No! I cancelled that order! Damn Tails jammed my signal! Stop it Mechanix don't come-" But Mechanix already reached the ship and opened a hatch. He reached to a tube inside when a spark twinkles and suddenly they're both engulfed in a colorful Chaos Energy explosion.

As the fireball slows and falls behind, Tails comes on the intercom again. "Gotcha Robotnik, heheh." "Tails!" Sonic shouts in joyful gratitude.

"Sonic, the hatch!" Tails presses in reminder.

Sonic immediately goes to the hatch and spin attacks it twice to jump in. "There should be a computer- a small electronic box, somewhere in the middle there." Sonic spindashes through the cramped machinery and ends up busting the computer in question.

Tails says a few jargon words under his breath as he types and then says, "Alright, I got it now. Now get away from there or the detachment rocket will burn you!"

"Got it!" Sonic says as he gets out. As he runs back to the door near Tails, the warhead detaches from the main rocket before blasting off on its own. Tails managed to get Flying Fury facing away from the earth as it fell in, so that the warhead would fly upwards and hopefully back into space.

Sonic turns his head to see it go, only for the rocket to start to rumble and shake.

"Oh... Oh yeah! Taking out the nose would ruin the aerodynamics!" Tails yells out. Sonic is alarmed but then laughs about it. Tails goes on, "Looks like we can't land as smoothly as I thought. But I can still save the animals! Hold on, Sonic, things are gonna get intense!"

Sonic shakes his head, smiling, and finds another hatch. Instead of spin attacking, he plants himself between the rungs, holding on tight. He looks down the length of the rocket tube and hears the noises of detachment before a large lower section disconnects and drops behind. It falls ahead of the rocket for a moment when its boosters engage and suddenly yank it far above them.

The rest of the rocket starts to spin in the air when its own exhaust launches, sending forceful jolts up the metal past Sonic, manifesting as powerful quakes.

Tails speaks with caught breath, "Well, we're not gonna land now. We're gonna crash!" Then static.

"Tails!" Sonic yells, unable to hear his own voice. The static stops, a strange silence in the rocket's din. He clings to the metal rungs, which grew hotter as they came near re-entry. Sonic knew from experience how hot re-entry would be.

Just as he figures to take his chances back inside, the hatch suddenly turns in the air and Sonic freaks out yelling, "Aahhhh!" Did the rocket explode?! Is he alive?! But then he sees he's stationary next to the rocket surface, at a different angle. He lets go and sees Tails crawl against the force of air pressure out onto the surface.

"TAILS, YOU'RE OKAY!" Sonic yells over the noise. Tails smiles while slowly crawling over to Sonic.

"NO POINT STAYING HERE! LET'S JUMP!" Tails shouts back.

Sonic appreciates Tails, enjoying this playful bravery, his smile widening as he remembered how young this little guy was, and still is. He nods, forgetting all about Robotnik and Mechanix and Zaga and everything else. They slowly stand to their feet, together, as the rocket's fuel burns out and it starts to flip through the medium between space and atmosphere. A dome of light suddenly flashes right over the rocket as its portable atmosphere crashes and burns into Mobius's. On the third flip, just as the light comes to grab them, they launch themselves off.

They shoot off as parallel to the ground as they could predict. Flying through the sky at several hundred miles per hour, wildly laughing and spreading their arms in the wind of the upper sky. Tails stretches his tails and gestures to Sonic, who gives him a thumbs-up. Tails then exerts himself, rapidly rotating his tails against the force of wind, clutching his eyes and fists. Sonic rolls to his side and turns towards Tails. He evens out and taps Tails, who looks at Sonic with an exerted expression. Sonic then feels guilty, only for Tails to smile and laugh. He sends out his hands and Sonic catches them. They then rapidly decelerate and tumble through the air, as the rocket falls flipping to the side.

They slow down after a while and eventually come to Tails' normal flying speed. He relaxes every now and then, making them gain a little speed from the drop.

"Maaaan that was _close_. I couldn't have done it without you, Tails."

Tails smiles and looks away. "Aww, well... you saved me first." He then turns to Sonic. "Hey, more than that, didn't we just stop a nuclear warhead from blowing up the entire planet?"

Even though he saw both space, the atmosphere, and parts of the surface of the planet, that didn't register as he stares blankly at it, "Yeah. Yeah we did!"

"Haha! I just woke up, too! 'All in a morning's work!'"

They both laugh heartily and relaxed.

Suddenly, they're both blinded. A white light blots out all of the sky and all of the earth. It is hundreds of times brighter than the sun, and after the shortest glance they tucked their chins in and squinted as hard as they could. They yell in pain, then yell at each other to hang on.

After half a minute, it slowly begins to fade away. Tails stops and turns, looking upwards at the 100,000 Mt explosion rinsing away the heavens, just barely out of the planet's atmosphere.

The near clouds scatter and a momentous shock wave blasts into them splaying their bond in an instant. They yelp for each other, deafened by the boom, eyes red and wet from the light and wind, helpless. Another shock wave smashes through their bodies and flings them down, down into the earth. Sonic spins, blind, deaf, in pain, in emotional pain, judging nothing and no one. He loses Tails and falls through the clouds of night.


	4. Sonic Ballistic, Part 3

Part 3

**Great Glacier** [Act 1] (3/14)

Freezing darkness. Sonic wakes to a bitter cold clinging to nearly every inch of his skin. He tries to spindash but his muscles are too numb, so he swipes his hands around before pushing them against the packed snow below, pushing himself up. He frees his legs, one at a time. He then looks up and clears snow out from overhead. He climbs out and finds himself in an ice cave. Yet above him unset snow drifts down a cracked hole in the ceiling, which from its size and shape he supposes he made himself on impact after he lost consciousness in the air.

He shivers. He walks down the cave to its entrance, his vision obscured by a whirling block of white snow, howling with bitter frigidity. He curses his luck, rubbing his hands and jogging in place. Sudden, piercing hot pain shoots through his blood and shocks his senses awake as the frostbite thaws away. He tries to distract himself by recalling the battle with Mechanix and Robotnik.

He thinks, "There's no way he died there. No way. If he survived our last space battle... It's far from over. He already has 3 Chaos Emeralds, he said. I have to double my pace and get the rest quickly... He's serious now. He's serious and frickin' insane. He must be on the move right now... seeking the Emeralds, gathering his forces, preparing some new super-weapon... hmm... If he's playing smart now, he'll do whatever he can to keep me from getting the Emeralds. It's cool, though, I'll do what I do but just not underestimate him this time."

The blizzard continues roaring. Sonic inhales frosty air that chills his cheeks and throat. He exhales a thick white cloud. "Now that Tails is safe, I can go all-out. I won't let Robotnik win... I won't even let him escape. Now..."

.

_It's night and there's a blizzard. Visibility is low, about a half-length of the screen in a diameter centered on Sonic. _

_The blizzard winds change rapidly and randomly, even coming to a steady halt for a few seconds. The steeper the gradient of the slope Sonic is on, the weaker any winds are that come from behind him, stopping at 50 degrees. The winds push Sonic even at his top speed, so it is important to keep track of them, especially in dangerous areas. His speed is halved if he runs against the wind._

_There are no enemies here._

.

Sonic runs out of the cave across the ragged snow-covered hills and rocks of the mountain ridge. He scrambles around, crossing precipitous ledges and leaping over deadly chasms. The ledges are actually more dangerous, as there are unstable rocks holding up snowdrifts that will unleash avalanches and rockslides onto him if he carelessly hits the rocks on his way (they can be identified by their irregular positioning, often standing alone at an angle.

In the flatter areas are long cracks in the ground that Sonic may find no other recourse but to explore to progress. The hairline cracks lead to tunnels criss-crossing thin underground ravines, all with walls of blue and white ice (there is a slight resemblance to _Ice Cap Zone_ from _Sonic 3_, albeit with less geometric patterns). Sonic is free of the bothersome wind and snow, but instead has to deal with slippery ice. While a small concern for regular jumps, the lack of traction makes wall-jumping more difficult, requiring no delay in each separate wall-jump as Sonic slips down the walls. He needs to deal with this as he explores the ice caves, as well as in some of the steep cliffs aboveground.

Sonic learns through exploration rather than direct sight that the mountain he's on is an island in the sky, or almost one anyway, as all but one of the mountaintop's edges lead to falls to the death with no escape. There is but one path: up. Sonic climbs through the wild blizzard and the perilous snow and ice until he finally breaks through the deep fog of the cloud layer. He continues his ascent until he reaches the summit, and there he stops under the sky of dawn.

.

In the distance are other mountain peaks breaching the cloud layer. But the moon now sinks over the edge of the earth and a glow of blue light spreads out from the other side. The clouds move away and dissipate as morning returns to Mobius. He sees beyond the nearby white caps the bumps of shorter mountains in a familiar red color. He looks up and squints, trying to see the thin strings of floating platforms making the air base he was at some 8-12 hours ago.

Sonic thinks to himself, figuring out what's next. "Good, I'm not that far. I'll keep going this way, pass that volcano, and I should be at Grand City by noon. Tails should be there and we can find the Emeralds with the Tornado. If not, I'll get someone else... I can't rely on my speed alone this time to stop Robotnik."

.

.

[Act 2]

_There are enemies here._

Sonic starts out on the summit as light and warmth bloom from the world again. But almost immediately the snowy ground drops in angle underneath him and gravity takes away his self-control. He blasts through ice caves, zips through loops and flies up and off curved slopes. He is at top speed and stays there, but while fun it's also dangerous. There's little time for warning and even less room for slowing down on the steep inclines and jagged crags with their spike-like rocks and deadly abysms requiring quick-witted jumps. It's an intense ride for a minute and a half before Sonic passes the timberline.

Running down the more gradual gradient of the lower mountain, he hops down rock gardens and runs through pine trees before coming to a snow-covered log cabin on the edge of a cliff. Although he _can_ jump over it and move on, if instead he plows through the wooden door he'll find a snowboard leaning against the wooden rail of a veranda. He lays it down, snaps its belts over his shoes, and jumps over the edge, falling down the cliff.

Board or no board, Sonic drops on the top of a gigantic glacier, sapphire blue. He slides across the ice, avoiding the seracs and moraines (which will throw him off the snowboard if he hits it on one, but will run across them normally), jumping over the crevasses and fallen tree logs, and dropping down the icefalls. Being ice, it is only barely possible to barely slow down on foot; however, at parts there is snow accumulation. Some snow mounds are fresh and will simply slow Sonic down (safely of course) as he plows through, but there are packed mounds which take ramp-like shapes that shoot Sonic into the air for a moment or a few as he continues his rapid descent.

The glacier slims away and Sonic detaches himself and jumps off the snowboard if he's still on it before he comes back to lukewarm ground. As he goes down the rest of the mountain, he sees before him the very same volcano he explored at the very beginning of his journey. This time, he faces its lee side and dashes from pines and broad-leaved trees through a flat shrubland with a few riparian interruptions.

Just before Sonic reaches the large red mountain, he sees a dynamite explosion at its base. As the smoke clears and he runs closer, he sees a large group of robots around a tunneling machine angled down towards the crater's deep bottom. Wondering what the intention was to return here, a glint of green light sparkles off a Chaos Emerald being held by an Egg Robo among many others. Just then, they notice Sonic in turn and speed off to intercept him.

.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

In the dusty fields at the volcano's edge Sonic fights the Egg Robos. This is similar to the boss battle at Blue Hill with its successive waves of enemies, but the Chaos Emerald adds a new challenge. Whichever Egg Robo holds the Chaos Emerald has increased power in attack strength and defensive endurance. That is, an Emerald-wielding Egg Robo is twice as strong and takes four hits rather than just two without it. When it is defeated, another will rapidly move to retake it and any others will gather to get in Sonic's way. In addition, there are two new types of Egg Robos: the Egg A-Robo and the Egg S-Robo.

Egg A-Robos are armored, taking four hits before destruction. Their movement and attack speed are much slower than normal Egg Robos and they cannot fly.

To compensate, their attacks are stronger:

- their pulse cannons fire pulse balls which are twice as large (but 1.5 times as slow),

- their punches can rocket out to medium-range before slowly returning by chain-links (similar to the Death Egg guardian),

- and their rocket launcher fires ten quick homing missiles that self-detonate after two seconds if they do not impact Sonic or the ground (or other Egg Robos by accident).

With a Chaos Emerald, their attacks are almost at normal speed, they fire twenty homing missiles instead of ten, and they take eight hits.

.

Egg S-Robos have even less armor than normal Egg Robos, taking just one hit each, but this frees them to move at high speed (which is slightly below Sonic's top speed).

Their attacks are generally weaker but faster:

- their pulse cannons fire very small shots which rapidly dissipate, but discharge at a rate of five per second,

- their punches are almost too fast to predict but only occur at point-blank range,

- and they can only launch one slow missile, which doesn't home in on Sonic but instead has twice as large an explosion radius and self-detonate after 1 and a half seconds without impact.

With a Chaos Emerald, their pulse shots are larger but still slightly smaller than normal Egg Robo shots, their missiles move at standard speed, and they take two hits instead. Their punches remains the same.

.

As mentioned, the battle proceeds in waves, with the Chaos Emerald in enemy possession throughout.

Wave 1: Three Egg Robos

Wave 2: Three Egg Robos

Wave 3: Two Egg Robos and one Egg A-Robo

Wave 4: Four Egg Robos

Wave 5: Two Egg A-Robos

Wave 6: Four Egg Robos

Wave 7: One Egg Robo and two Egg S-Robos

Wave 8: Three Egg S-Robos

Wave 9: Five Egg Robos

Wave 10: One Egg A-Robo and two Egg S-Robos

Wave 11: Three Egg Robos and two Egg A-Robos

Wave 12: Five Egg Robos, one Egg A-Robo, and two Egg S-Robos

The total count being thirty-three Egg Robos, seven Egg A-Robos, and nine Egg S-Robos. After defeating them all, Sonic picks the Chaos Emerald off the ground and runs down the drilled tunnel.

.

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**Violent Volcano** [Act 1] (3/15)

The tunnel breaches a large diagonal vent lit by torches in a different manner and with brighter flames. Sonic runs down the straight slope until he breaks through a series of fragile stone walls back into the underground temple complex. Specifically, he is in a large hallway with big tetrahedral columns partly sunk in a bed of slowly moving ribbon lava falling from the ceiling. The floor is lava but there are enough platforms of rock and temple architecture to cross the sea of fire alive. The drilling machine sizzles and pops on the side, the lava slowly melting through its dense metallic armor. He reaches the other side of the hallway which is angled up on a slope out of the lava. A slab of stone blocks a passageway.

Sonic breaks through the rocks and enters the other unexplored side of the Torch Temple ruins. He runs down a small corridor of snug solid stone and triangular walls cut at angles steep against the earth. They stretch through the deep earth, connecting hallways and large chambers such as the atrium and mess hall, brightly lit with cauldrons of fire on the angled walls. There is some rubble and badniks in the way. He explores hypostile halls and comes to a protected inner shrine of marble and semirare stone. It has polished stairwells on the side of wide empty floors, all lit by pleasant blue lanterns. Following the simple path, Sonic jumps through a circular stone portal into the topmost chamber of the ruins.

The walls stretch out in a dome above a gently sloped basin. There is a large bronze bowl of bright but heatless fire blazing out light. Its function is to clearly illuminate the tightly laid ancient mosaic on the circular wall. In regular intervals stand black stones to which many things are struck against, their forces being not resisted but multiplied, jar water into rivers, sword strikes into thunderclouds, and flames into conflagarations. Of 4 corners they stand 3, the last facing opposite all of them being a crowd of people kneeling and praying towards a river of onyx stones rising up the walls speckled across the ceiling as the stars. And painted in against the center of the dome was a single glowing echidna form.

.

There is a series of explosions followed by rumbling which did not end, and only increase in volume. Before Sonic even has the time to leave the room a crack reaches out and splits the room in half, flicking the room's light to and fro. The half Sonic's on reclines into the chamber below for a short moment, tipping the bowl of fire over but not quite due to its size. The rumbling suddenly jolts loud and closeby before explosions tear through the walls in both the upper chamber and the one below. A magma river blasts into the floor, throwing the bowl of fire the other way against the ceiling. Sonic crouches down and hangs on as the semicircular floor blasts sideways and angled against the force of the flow. A second magma river bursts out just as he is pushed out of harm's way, only to have it boost his platform's speed towards the wall. However, the floors continue to collapse and so Sonic finds himself riding down the opening cavity of the collapsing central section of the ruins. As his platform slides down slopes and across flat stretches, Sonic must keep centered while avoiding falling parts of the walls and ceilings like stone blocks and columns. A few hapless badniks might fling hopeless attacks or try to save themselves by catching a ride.

The corridors and hallways rapidly shrink in size until Sonic returns to the first half of Torch Temple. His platform will run into a more solid one as almost all of the rooms are now filled with lava and toppled debris to use for jumping. All of the sealed doorways are now open and Sonic must explore these unfamiliar areas instead. The entire cluster of rooms on the lowest floor next to the obsidian cavern at the end of Torch Temple's _Act 1_ is filled with lava, so he has no choice to go the old way.

Lava bubbles, spurts out of geysers, flows in streams and falls in lava falls out of walls and ceilings as he moves on. He reluctantly destroys columns supporting lava aqueducts and parts of the rock ceiling, running away from the crushing/burning death without stopping. Chased by a surge of lava, he runs through circular-bored torch-lit tunnels. They connect to a small shrine set between two colonnades with most of the floor covered in lava. He swiftly leaps from platform to platform as they are engulfed behind him. Clearing the shrine on the last patch of stone floor, he enters another tunnel only to find it immediately comes to a dead end. That is, until he spots a tiny hole in the wall and spins through it. The tube zig-zags and then spirals down through the rock.

.

_There are almost twice as many badniks in these rooms._

It opens out from the tall edge of a wall in a different ruins complex. He falls and starts running down the narrow, darkened corridors, lit by small basins of fire at waist-level. The hallway leads to a room with large walls filled with alcoves holding hundreds of stone coffins. As he runs by, the great numbers are replaced by a single highly decorated niche where the figure of an echidna leader of some sort stands in image on a large sarcophagus.

He comes to the edge of the crypt. A doorway drops into finds a sloped corridor and Sonic follows it downward. It starts turning counter-clockwise in even intervals as it drops down, and the interior wall opens up horizontal windows to reveal an interior chamber. Laid in the walls are elaborate winged and armored statues standing over bejeweled sarcophagi. The torches are small here, casting sharp dark shadows across their forms. Despite his quick descent speed due to the constant steep angle of the floor, Sonic quickly runs into a long concatenation of badnik forces. A few come falling down behind him as well.

.

The square spiral slope suddenly stops and is flat. The passage opens into the bottom of the interior chamber, a rather wide space teeming with badniks and Egg Robos. Just as he enters the room, they all suddenly stop moving. After a brief chilling moment, the sarcophagus closest to ground level starts shaking on its own, and does so in an uncannily gentle way. Its cover automatically and slowly slid open. After a moment, an Egg Robo with a radio antenna sticking out of its back flies flies above Sonic.

All of the robots deactivate, the lights in their eyes fading out. All but one of the Egg Robos fall over, that one floating in the air. The light on its antenna blinking red.

The floor explodes and lava starts bursting out of the center. Sonic quickly turns around and dashes up the spiral as lava splashes and melts all of the robots on the ground. It quickly fills up and chases him on the ascent, and then lava starts to blast out of more sections of the interior chamber's walls. The lava only rises faster. And then he looks up through the open windows and sees a wave of lava coming down the spiral. Sprinting, he spots a tunnel blown out of the exterior wall. Fortunately, only small puddles of lava are left. He throws his legs against the ground and gives it his all to stay alive and lukewarm.

Before he can catch his breath, he comes to the open edge of the tunnel. It looks over a gigantic underground cavern filled with churning lava. Looking back, he sees the rolling breaker of fast-moving lava rise and run at him. He jumps.

.

He falls. He turns around to see the wall from where he came from and sees its part of the surface of a giant stalactite. It falls back into the wavy hot air, as his ears are met by the orchestra of hundreds of lava bubble pops over the deep hum of shifting melted earth. He takes a sweeping glance across the ceiling, seeing huge stretches of rock, stone and even reinforced steel in the style of Biomech Base set in the vast walls. The mountainous slopes of rock recede in darkness against giant blankets of smoke through drippy mirages. The heat blasts into Sonic and he starts to sweat profusely. He then rolls over, looking at the lava. The platforms speckled across its semi-stable surface are large stalagmites and scattered flotsam, mostly rocky but partly metallic. Sonic sees he's dropping towards one of these and starts a light spin ball roll. He slams into the ground and takes the force of the drop, and finally takes a deep slow breath as he rises back to his feet. He coughs harshly, having felt the air choke him with furious heat and bitter taste.

Looking across the sea of fire, Sonic deduces he's in the central magma chamber of the volcano. Watching it still further, he concludes it is getting active and he is in extreme danger. Large chunks of rock blast out from the surface and powerful geysers end up raining chunks of fire across wide areas. The surface of the lava forms waves with the constant splashes which can wash down floating platforms. Sonic takes the challenge and runs and jumps with it, as he will certainly die if he stayed still instead. After crossing a short length, Sonic starts to realize there is a steady rhythm to some of the magma explosions, which he had a suspicion about due to coming out of rocks above the lava at times.

He reaches the wide open center of the lake where the noise is loudest, and finds in the middle a large lava submarine robot with heavy black steel armor covered in hundreds of sharp thin spikes. It's constantly firing out rocket-propelled grenades randomly around the entire lake. Sonic braves the final waves of fire and comes into close range. The robot gets alert and stops firing, for a second.

.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

The submarine robot starts to move through the lava away from Sonic. It is trying to reach a medium range where it can strafe away from him while constantly attacking. However, it is always constantly attacking.

Its attacks are:

- charging at Sonic to hurt and knock him into the lava, crushing the platforms beneath him, or

- - - (Sonic can always jump over it to the next one. Also, if a platform is too sturdy, like a large stalagmite or a piece of wall from Biomech Base, it will slam into it and have to reverse and turn around)

- or firing out its endless supply of RPGs.

- - - low and straight, forcing Sonic to jump over them,

- - - in a high arc, raining down from above and exploding the lava beneath him,

- - - into the ceiling, dropping down rocks, metal walls, metal scaffolding, and rarely lava falls.

Like the boss from _Lava Reef Zone Act 2_ in _Sonic & Knuckles_, Sonic cannot attack directly but must use the enemy's own explosive weapon it. While Robotnik strangely let his own mines spill onto his Egg-o-Matic, this robot actively moves away from its live-fired ammunition. Sonic must attack the multi-rocket launcher itself. After _eight hits, _the launcher breaks on itself, blocking the cannon tubes. It quickly moves away, but the very next time it tries to fire a volley of missiles, they all collide on the inside instead, tearing the submarine and its armor to pieces in a chain of explosions.

.

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[Act 2]

_Enemy presence is minimal._

The robot continues to explode as it sinks into the lava, when suddenly its entire stockpile of rockets explode. Sonic watches from the distance as a huge ball of fire and lava pops in the center. It drops and resounds through the lake, the force of the boom shaking Sonic at his feet and throws a push against the entire chamber. A great rumbling begins and continually increases in volume as it starts to shake the entire volcano. The magma starts churning rapidly and Sonic has only a few seconds to cross to the wall of the chamber while parts of the lava lake are still relatively flat. There he finds solid ground and ledges onto which he can jump and climb away from the slowly rising lava. He climbs and climbs towards the ceiling and finds another tunnel open in the walls and leading up and out.

Again Sonic enters and traverses the ruins, avoiding the constant threat of lava on the floor and pouring out of walls and the ceiling. And now the overall level of lava is rising and large sections of rooms will fall apart as the volcano shakes. In between circular tunnels and the orthogonal lava-filled ruins are a few narrow vertical fissures and vents he can use to rapidly ascend, although some of them require consistent wall-jumping.

The final such vent leads to the inner side of the volcano crater burning brightly under the glaring late morning sun. He slips down the steep walls and jumps over a small quick wall of lava splashing out. He lands on a large mass of cooled rock resting on the rock above a huge hole directly above the central magma chamber. He can hear the sound of the lava rising quickly up towards the crater. Sonic sighs, and just as he is about to spindash to roll up the crater wall, a black silhouette rises over the crater wall and drops down, falling in front of Sonic.

.

It's Knuckles!

"Knuckles?! What are you doing here now, why?! The volcano's gonna explode!"

"Yeah and I wonder why, Sonic! You like exploring so much, huh? Raiding my people's graves! Destroying ancient invaluable ruins!"

"Knuckles why would I do that. Why! It's Robotnik who's doing that! Stop being stupid, I'm gonna-"

"**_Listen_** to me, you lying _punk_! I found a scroll in the Sky Sanctuary. It was the chronicles of the ancient echidna people, my ancestors, the Zexesh. They were once the true masters of Mobius, long before your kind! Now, I am no longer the lone protector of the Master Emerald, duty-bound to just the Floating Island, no. No, I am the inheritor of the greatest legacy the world has ever known! You're going nowhere, Sonic. I'm gonna beat you down. Your willful defilement of my people shall no longer go unpunished!"

.

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[Act 2 Boss: KNUCKLES]

Knuckles first fights just as he did in the _Hidden Palace_ battle near the end of _Sonic & Knuckles_ (_Sonic's story_).

_As the fight goes on, the magma builds up beneath them and the rock starts to rise up the crater._

His initial attacks are that:

- He can spindash,

- duck to defend from spin attacks,

- glide (this time he aims to glide into Sonic instead of simply move over him)

- and punch (this time he will follow up with a 3-punch combo if the first punch connects).

However, he is slightly quicker in his movements.

This time, Knuckles brought some power rings with him. He'll have a number of them that's randomly between 20 and 35 rings. If he is hit, he loses 20 rings and will try to recollect as many as he can. This makes him vulnerable, and Sonic can always use more rings himself. Once Knuckles is ringless, he'll take _four hits_ before gliding away for a short breather.

.

As Knuckles falls back, Sonic tells him, "Knuckles, you're being really stupid. Your ruins are _in a volcano_. And what's more, _Dr. Robotnik_ started this current eruption. Stop being crazy and let me get the hell out of here!"

Knuckles leers. "You're inogminious, you cowardry swine. I will kill him just the same. I will destroy the volcano too. Now, fear, and die in flames."

.

The fight continues. Knuckles changes his attack pattern.

He launches long targeted offenses punctuated by short rest periods. He runs, spindashes and glides towards Sonic and throws attacks whenever Sonic is close enough. This is his new list of attacks:

- the lead-in punch as before,

- normal spindash,

- a spindash followed by a jump and spin attack at Sonic,

- normally jumping and spin attacking, that is while standing still or running,

- holding back a fist while starting to run, and then throwing a powerful punch forward that will send Knuckles sliding along the ground,

- a quick uppercut whenever Sonic jumps near him,

- and dropping after gliding when right above Sonic so as to slam down a hammer punch.

He takes another _eight hits_.

.

The volcano erupts. The large rock platform is split into pieces and other pieces of rock fly out from beneath it, immediately followed by giant mounds of blasting lava. Sonic is sent flying in the air but lands on a flying piece of rock. He must now think quick to escape the pyroclastic explosion. He needs to jump across the hurtling rocks one at a time to keep from falling into the wall of exploding lava just beneath him.

Knuckles is right there, jumping across the rocks just the same. Sonic is alarmed, somewhat scared, and somewhat excited. Knuckles is quicker at free navigation however and rapidly finds secure spots above Sonic's position from which he launches mid-air attacks in the middle of their eruption escape. He jumps hard off the rock he's on, punching through every flying rock in the way, in order to punch Sonic and knock him helplessly into the lava to burn and disintegrate. Sonic can always evade by continuing the free platforming, but if he waits too long neither of them can possibly escape the lava. To be precise, Sonic has about _10 seconds_ to hit Knuckles just once. If he fails, the lava catches up to the rocks and they both die.

.

He succeeds. He thwacks Knuckles good, sending him and even himself flying out of the eruption. Hurtling through the air, Knuckles is spinning and moving twice as fast. Sonic untucks in the air, still flying up from the inertia, and he looks at Knuckles.

"Him, too... Just like Robotnik, he's gotten so crazy..."

Knuckles then crashes into the cockpit of a flying plane as an increasing number of other planes and airships fly past them. Surprised, he turns around and sees a massive air fleet blanketing the sky. In perfect formation they smoothly fly around the volcanic eruption, looking like a steady stream of silver fish swimming through the sky. A medium-sized fighter plane approaches and Sonic lands on its wing. He feels his traction and carefully crawls to the front where he breaks through the cockpit. In doing so, he also destroys the Egg Robo piloting it.

He turns around and looks out as the plane keeps steady, on auto-pilot anyway as Sonic suspected. Then over the robotic language beeps of the air fleet computers' radio communications, a brief jingle ends with words in the voice of Dr. Robotnik.

"Enemy anti-air has been repositioned. Air Squadron 32, change trajectory to sectors E4 through G10. Change bombing pattern to parabola type. Ground Squadrons 15 through 22, keep contact and prepare advance from sector K2."

"Now remember this you obsolete models, the primary objective is to draw all enemy targets away from Mechanix and me! Until my command, that is all. Any pieces of scrap that execute ANY future objectives before mission completion _will_ be destroyed. Kill the Mobians, raze Grand City! But do not kill Sonic until the mission is completed!"

The transmission ends. Sonic breathes. "Of course he came back from that last fight. He's not even stopping now. And if he's still going with stuff at _this_ level, then he must be planning something really, really powerful..." Sonic lets the idea drop in his mind as he remembers what Tails taught him about flying planes. He slowly accustoms himself to the controls. Ready, he smirks. He says, "Let's be serious then. Bring it," hits the afterburners and blasts off towards the center of the air fleet.

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**Egg Tempest** [Act 1] (3/16)

Sonic ejects and the jet flies straight into another. They fuse into an exploding fireball that falls into the distance. Sonic flies and pierces through a ship or two more before landing on the tail end of a large flying battleship. He runs up the fuselage which has a few automated turrets firing energy pellets back at him. He destroys what he can but keeps moving. He can choose to break through the cockpit and destroy the pilot and controls, forcing the plane to sharply lose altitude and crash. Whether he does or not, he must jump to another small fighter jet and start island-hopping at high speeds. He'll start facing badniks who brave the tremendous winds to try and take Sonic out. A few are basically flying vehicles anyway. Sonic may have to move forward by chain bouncing off of enemies in a few places. Should Sonic miss a jump, he'll find two to three more layers of flying 'platforms' and enemies to break his fall.

The small plane-island chain ends behind another battleship, this one different in design - a bomber. The plan is the same, except this time if the controls are destroyed the plane will explode only a moment after the nose dips. The explosion is gigantic and expansive, a fireball that grows in 3 seconds to twice the bomber's size. Sonic moves diligently to avoid getting hurt.

Just as he is getting used to this environment, an audio signal is broadcast to all airships. "Squadron 14, break ranks and terminate Sonic the hedgehog! All other forces double speed!"

The signal ends. All nearby vehicles start turning into wide loops on trajectory to target Sonic as he jumps from plane to plane. They'll shoot machine guns and even fire missiles at their own allies if it will stop Sonic. The 'platforms' themselves resist him: the fighters roll whenever he jumps on them, and the larger battleships rise or fall to brush Sonic off from the pressure of wind. Many badniks start coming out to attack from the ships he jumps on and from air transports dropping by. Egg Robos with enhanced jetpacks launch up from behind, firing at Sonic with cascading waves of energy bullets and missiles with large explosion radii. To survive, Sonic stays on the move, focused on every jump as it comes and goes, with the safe road is constantly slipping out from under his every step.

There's no pause and the tension starts to drag. It's a death trap opening its jaw wide when suddenly ships in the background burst into smoke and flames and drop out of the sky. The Tornado zooms by! Tails flips around and first cuts down attacking enemy fighters before sharpshooting the smaller badniks directly ahead of Sonic. The encouraging tide quickly crests and withdraws as Robotnik reinforces the enemy fighters. Enemy badniks come now in teams intent on surrounding and stopping Sonic for as long as it takes to make him fall and die. Tails starts to get hounded by his own foes but helps Sonic whenever he frees himself. Sonic, for his part, does what he does best, even if it's in the sky.

Sonic escapes the edge of the battlefield to land on the long deck of the air fleet's flagship. He runs pass structures armored in riveted steel, giant iron chains, and plows past rows of defense turrets and badnik guards. An alarm goes off to no surprise. Before long, he comes to slope leading under the deck to a large blast door. As he approaches, it rolls open to reveal a large cargo hold within, lit by bright, industrial orange lights. Sonic slowly walks closer, feeling uneasy and paranoid. The feeling only builds with each step, and with only two steps he turns around to see Egg Hunter jetting right towards him with fist out-stretched. He grabs it just in time and jumps off the ground as the force of Egg Hunter's punch throws him towards the wall of the hold. Sonic flips around, lands on the wall, and jumps right back!

.

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[Act 1 Boss]

Sonic wonders if at Quickened Quay Egg Hunter was really trying to kill him, because now it seems to have returned to its original task of destroying Sonic. He puts those thoughts aside for now.

.

_The blast door shuts behind Egg Hunter, locking the two together. For the first six hits, the cargo hold stays where it is, but on the seventh the floor suddenly shifts and machinery starts rolling into motion in the background. The hold is actually much larger and this room is only the main elevator. As it slowly descends the walls open behind metal grating to reveal a very large multi-floor cargo room holding hundreds of giant iron crates and all sorts of robotic military equipment. A large metal gate blocks off the path however._

The hangar is filled with stacked corrugated metal boxes that Sonic can jump over and across, as well as hide behind, under and sometimes in.

Egg Hunter can now fly indefinitely in the air and is slightly faster in general. It sticks to its previous attack plan with two new additions:

- Egg Hunter's combination attack is now 7 attacks long.

- It has a machine gun that he will fire at Sonic in short bursts. It's most easily avoid by ducking out of fire behind the crates. Egg Hunter dislikes camping however, and will fire a S-Robo missile at his position. It will certainly blow up the crate, but the fire and shrapnel will catch Sonic too if he does not evade quickly enough.

He is a fairly predictable opponent now, but still moderately difficult to defeat. Sixteen hits end the battle. The gate opens and Egg Hunter flees in a second.

.

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[Act 2]

Sonic runs through the cargo area as harmless worker robots push dollies and drive forklifts in the background. He runs through a tight doorway into a series of small but long inner hallways. It resembles the inside of a sea battleship with pipelines and bundled wires running down bare iron walls. Bright fluorescent lights cast yellow and red from the hall and from the many passing rooms of compressed size and functionality. The rooms are only slightly larger than those in the Flying Fury, and they are often filled with robots alerted to Sonic's presence. Sonic plows through them and the rooms at his typical high speed, but the air battleship is atypically large for either a plane or ship. Its size is comparable to that of the _Flying Battery_ or the _Flying Fortress._ Sonic finds the path waving and spinning around, running into elevator shafts and the occasional large interior spaces such as the platform-heavy service rooms. Every now and then, he reaches the sides of the ship and a hatch breaks open to the open sky outside. Catwalks run alongside the ship's sides but the heavy wind and scattered positioning of the separate catwalks are dangerous limits Sonic keeps his mind on. But these segments are relatively short and few in between.

After a while of wreaking havoc inside the flagship, Sonic battles his way back to the top decks. He avoids turret fire and heavy badnik presence, jumping from deck to deck on his way to the helm. He then passes by piles of charred rubble and burning craters and follows the sound of slams and booms shortly ahead of him.

He spots Knuckles, who hears his footsteps and turns around to face him. Without a word he comes swinging at Sonic, who simply jumps over his head and continues on. Knuckles chases him but the constant enemy presence drags him behind despite his strength. Sonic keeps going, passing the constant hail of turret fire before coming to a giant ship cannon blocking his way. Before he can come close to inspect it, rockets whizz through the air and blast apart chunks of metal, causing the cannon ammo to react and explode as well. Tails then zips by overhead and Sonic makes the final climb towards the control tower. He runs up the suspended steel steps that circle the rectangular walls and arrives in the cabin at the helm.

The room is darkened against the slim ribbon window at front with the walls instead covered with LEDs sparkling across dense blocks of computers and manual control panels next to neon animated graphs and diagrams. There is a thin monitor hanging from the ceiling and suddenly it brightens with light and an image.

.

Robotnik.

"Before you say a word, this is a pre-recorded message. I knew you would come exactly here, down to this exact time." Sonic narrows his eyes. "Yes, that means I knew you would stop the Flying Fury and even defeat me and Mechanix. If you were smart, you would be terrified for your life right now because of how smart I am," Robotnik says and Sonic laughs at it.

"But you're stupid and will continue to attack, thus you are here, as is too obvious to even calculate. So let me direct you to our next meeting so you can follow along as usual like a nice, predictable soldier of mine, Sonic the idiot. I am staging an assault on Grand City and intend to infiltrate the secret high-security laboratory of the global Mobian government's headquarters at the Fourth Building. If all the Mobians die or are captured and roboticized, that goal would be secondary. Now-"

Knuckles suddenly appears out of nowhere gliding through the air at high speeds and punches through the monitor, breaking it off the ceiling and sparking on the floor. He turns around and marches violently, kicking his feet down with each step.

"You cowardly mold slime, I should have squished you instead of tried to chastise your sinful nature. An honorless fiend like you knows not the light of righteousness."

Sonic laughs but curls his hands into fists and strafes around Knuckles' steady march. "Don't be crazy, Knuckles. Crazy is bad. We are minutes away from global war between Mobius and Robotnik, and you want to kill me because I touched some old stuff your people built."

Knuckles grinds his teeth. "I know about Robotnik. Mechanix the holy shall destroy him in time. You are the greater threat. You must be destroyed now!" He then dashes and twists his body back, his bent arm preparing to launch his spiked fist straight into Sonic's face. Sonic jumps at once and just in time, with the speed and power of Knuckles' punch heating up the air, which he was just breathing, into a brief but hot white ball of fire

When Sonic falls on the other side of Knuckles, he suddenly looks up and behind him, startled to see Robotnik's face again on a monitor on the other side of the room, hidden from Sonic when he first walked in. With the start of his voice, Knuckles turns around too.

"Knuckles, my dear friend, you did not let me finish speaking. Now, as I was saying... die."

A large explosion shakes the ship, bursting out the middle of the deck and cracking the ship in half. The two stare as a chain reaction sends strings of exploding fire up and down the line of the whole flying battleship, tearing apart turrets and landed fighter jets. The ship's attitude turns earthward and reveals through the thin ribbon window the ground of the familiar gentle river valley where stands the great megalopolis of the collective cooperating Mobian species, Grand City. Sonic's alarmed to see columns of smoke and flashes of light splash randomly and often all around the city, but it quickly falls out of view. As the ship continues to tilt over and fall, the wide fields of verdant grass turn up from below the city and show how filled they are with the great gray metallic masses of Robotnik's ground army marching in. Without waiting any longer, Sonic jumps through the window as Knuckles shouts, "Hey!" behind him.

.

Sonic is falling through the open sky, past the layered air fleet formations through a layer of clouds. He hears the shrill whine of a diving biplane and drops out of the floating fog with his feet resting on the upper wing of the Tornado. He looks at Tails who doesn't look back, focused on the trajectory ahead with a serious expression.

"Sonic, I already told the Mayor about Robotnik's invasion. I just barely reached the Tornado in time early enough to let him start a working defense."

Tails takes a breath and gulps. "If Robotnik is really serious like he really seems to be now... he's not going to stop even if we beat his plans. Not anymore. He's going to keep on preparing worse and worse attacks on Mobius until we can't keep up anymore. And if this one is a full-out war, then there's no way we can stop whatever he's planning to do next!"

Sonic lets out a syllable of agreement and breathes in, taking in the reality of the fight now that he has a moment. This is different from every other adventure he went on in the past. His heart throbs, his throat tightens, his facial muscles forget to relax. He imagines Robotnik winning. He imagines those consequences. Robotnik's brutality... that level of genius perverted to such evil... the image of his success crushes the soul with the tightness of a vise. The concept of the immensity of such darkness began to pull on Sonic's mind and heart, with a strength such like the undertow would be of a singular tidal wave standing on top of a billion litres of blood. Under this weight Sonic forgets to breathe, but he then sees himself within such vivid fear and is startled by his own imagination. It was only his imagination after all. Just a flash brought on by the new level of pressure.

Sonic breathes out. He relaxes and from the darkness dashes out shining with confidence and energy, saying, "Then let's do it, Tails. Let's go to the next level and get serious ourselves! Robotnik is heading to the basement of the Fourth Building. He's already expecting us there. But we'll beat whatever he's got waiting for us and corner him once and for all!" Tails turns his head with a radiant smile and shouts out, "Yeah! It's about time we got serious, too!"

The varied darkened hues of shingled roofs pass by below in rows straight and curved. The Tornado passes over the boarded-up, abandoned family homes of the Grand City suburbs. And over the rush of wind is a cacophony of rapid pops and blasts and nearly constant rumbles. The war has already begun.

Tails looks up and curses under his breath. "I don't know when those aircrafts got here, but I can't let them harass the ground defense and they won't let you stay hanging on my wings. You got to continue on foot, Sonic! I have to help out but I'll meet up with you later!"

Sonic nods. "Gotcha. Do what you gotta do!"

He then leaps off the wings and Tails kicks the afterburners, pulling back up into the sky. Sonic whips through the air and drops rolling on the asphalt of a local highway leading into town. It is now high noon and the reddened sky is darkly cloudy.

.

.

**Grand City** [Act 1] (3/17)

Sonic starts out in the banlieue of Grand City, running through the alleyways and streets. He needs to vault over many street objects and break through blockades of Robotnik's forces which have already invaded the city. He runs down into ditches and through small storm drain pipes.

Running up and over monuments and low buildings, Sonic eventually comes to a large apartment complex and catches up to the fleeing civillians. But it is not just the war they run from, as an explosion rips through the apartment and then another building across the street. As the building burns and crumbles, a large mech walks forward with smoke billowing out of holes all around its body.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

The mech is a large biped with very angular and polygonal structures. It carries various rocket launchers across its body and a small head protected by glass where Sonic must attack.

Its attacks are:

- firing thirty tiny missiles which are somewhat fast but have small explosions (but are fired very rapidly),

- napalm which causes a fire for a short while,

- a large missile which causes a large explosion,

- and five fast homing missiles.

It will also move forward (although not to the point where it crushes Sonic). Eight hits will destroy it.

.

[Act 2]

Behind it lays a stairwell into the underground railroad system. Sonic will be dashing through the metro stops and across the rails. Halfway through it, a train will rush forward, prompting

Sonic to jump and land on its top. It well enter the sunshine and enter the city. Once it does, it will slam on the brakes. Sonic will fly off the top and several hundred meters ahead, robots will be planting a rocket launcher. Sonic will break through these and enter the city proper. He will dash down the streets filled with robots and through narrow alleyways and even through some shops. There will also be more obstacles on the street that will block his path. After crossing a bridge, he'll come to a long road being bombarded by artillery.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

The road has many standard enemies, but the main threat is the artillery shells coming down. They are very quick at falling and they create very large explosions. Sonic will need to either trust his incredible speed to dodge them, as they are visible for only a quarter a second before they hit, or he will have to play it safe and duck behind bunkers created from toppled cars and giant slabs of concrete. When he reaches the cannon at the end of the road, he will be confronted by 3 Egg A-Robos. After taking them out, he'll just need to hit the cannon thrice for it to break apart.

.

[Act 3]

Sonic will finally have caught up with the battle, as Robotnik's robots face off against the military of Grand City. The roads will be covered with craters and buildings will be broken through. Gunshots and explosion flood the air, and the streets have become a war zone. There will be too many robots to fight all at once, and Sonic will come across heavier and heavier resistance. He will come across large battle mechs which can take up to four hits to destroy. A quarter way through, there will be another mech of the same type as the Act 1 Boss. Knuckles appears from behind it and break through it. However, before he can say a word and attack Sonic, a robot holding a Chaos Emerald will dash by. Sonic goes after him, leaving Knuckles behind.

The chase will lead to the side of a building, where both will dash up the sides of the building. On the rooftop, the robot will run across and leap to other buildings. As Sonic gives chase, the air battle is seen in the background, with flak bursting and Grand City pilots fighting the many ships of the Egg Tempest. Sonic will run up the sides of buildings sometimes or dashes up the fire escape to catch up, and the buildings get progressively higher as they go deeper into the city. At the end, they will both be on top of a skyscraper. However, instead of fighting, the robot will leap off (it has rocket boosters). Sonic will jump but will fall short as soon as the robot's boosters kick in. However, Tails will pick him up in the Tornado and the chase will be back on.

.

[Act 3 Boss]

As the battle begins, in the background, Robotnik's ships will start bombing the city. At this point, the fight will dramatically increase in fervor from both sides. The Tornado will automatically chase the robot, however Tails must aim his machine gun fire to hit it. The robot will lead Sonic and Tails both above the rooftops, in between the buildings, and right above the battle on the streets.

- Smaller robots whom Sonic could bounce off of earlier will also come from the Egg Tempest to attack by shooting out beams, but they can be quickly dispatched.

- The robot itself will attack by firing somewhat large and long beams of energy. It will fire them horizontally at different heights.

After about ten seconds of the Tornado's machine gun fire at it (cumulative), it will short out the power it can access from the Chaos Emerald, allowing Sonic to jump and hit it directly.

- After four direct hits, it will fire a split beam that spiral in helices (the Tornado will need to fly between it).

Four more hits from Sonic will cause it to catch fire in the air. It will rocket far ahead and crash into a large building.

.

"Sonic! That's the Fourth Building!"

The building will be surrounded by Robotnik's forces, and his Egg-O-Matic will even be landed on the roof.

"Argh! With that much cover, the Tornado will be blown to bits. You're going to have to do this solo!"

"What are you going to do?"

"The city's already overwhelmed... they need all the help they can get. I even saw Knuckles, although he seemed angry to see me."

Tails was silent for a short while.

"Sonic... you need to tell me what's going on. What is Robotnik doing? Why did he try to kill me..."

"...there's no time for that, Tails. I need to stop him now! He has another 'Apocalypse' ready, I know it! He has to! This can't be enough for him..."

Sonic suddenly jumps off the Tornado and lands on the rooftop of the Severn Building as Tails calls out for him. As the ships above target him and fire, Tails quickly swerves away, leaving Sonic alone again.

.

[Act 4]

Sonic will break through the door and roll down the stairs. The Fourth Building is filled with robots and has long hallways and large rooms connected by narrow staircases and broken elevator shafts. When Sonic reaches the floor where the robot crashed into, he will find its wreckage but note that the Chaos Emerald is missing. Further down, the building will be more damaged. Several floors can be ripped through, and the infrastructure of the building could be left bare. On the ground floor, Sonic will be confronted by a large amount of robots. Several will be Egg Robos, some S and some A. Breaking through them, Sonic will come to another elevator shaft. Falling down it, he will come to a basement area with several blast doors broken through. He'll come to a large room where a large steel gate has yet to be opened, with Robotnik and Mechanix standing before it.

.

A small robot hands Robotnik the Emerald.

"Oh, another Chaos Emerald."

The robot quickly runs away, but Sonic spindashes through it.

"Even the Chaos Emeralds aren't big enough for your grand plan, Robotnik?"

Robotnik stopped moving, then slowly began again. He seemed to be working electronics on the gate's console.

"Mechanix is an astounding creation. The more time I spend with it, the more I am fascinated by the intricacies of its hardware and software design. The sheer power that this small body contains cannot even be explained with modern science."

He smiles and looks at Sonic.

"Of course, my science is much more advanced than the rest of the world's. My intelligence is beyond any of those fools they call 'geniuses'."

Unmoved, Sonic walks a few steps forward. Mechanix is still, although it faces him.

"Where's the mayor?"

"He is behind this gate, hiding behind his weak bodyguards. Do you want to save him? He isn't important. He is just another number, you know."

"This is overkill, even for you Robotnik. What's with all of these 'Apocalypses'? This Egg Tempest hardly seems on the same scale, anyway."

"Fool, as if they were meant to work..."

Sonic was startled.

"What?!"

"By yourself you destroyed the Death Egg, and it seems you had help with that fox on the Flying Fury. Now this city will fight to destroy my Egg Tempest and save the world. Do you see it yet...? No, no, I cannot expect you to."

"What are you talking about? You've been defeated time and time again. Even if you get all seven of the Chaos Emeralds and put it into Mechanix, I'll just rip him apart as Super Sonic."

Robotnik cackles and begins to laugh.

"Hahahaha! You damned fool, you still think you have a chance. You think I pulled out the gun when we are still playing cards. You fell so uniformly into my formula. Haha."

The gate starts to unlock and opens up slowly. He walks in, but turns around.

"The government hid a Chaos Emerald down here. After I take that, you have your final chance to save this world. Mechanix only needs two more Emeralds. When I unlock his true form..."

Sonic rushes towards Robotnik.

"Two? You're overestimating yourself!"

Mechanix then attacks Sonic, knocking the Emerald out of his glove

Robotnik gives Mechanix his Emerald, and Mechanix grabs the dropped one. He puts them towards his chest, which glows and disconfigures to allow the two inside. Once inside and with his chest closed, he begins to change. His angular parts shift and move as individual parts and his runic inscriptions become more elaborate and detailed. His bulkier, blocky body transforms into a sleeker structure with smoother surfaces.

Sonic gets up as Robotnik turns and walks away.

"If you want to die painlessly, this is also your final chance. Ha, as if you have free will! Mechanix, destroy him."

Mechanix's eyes glow and Robotnik vanishes behind a corner in the room beyond.

.

[Act 4 Boss : MECHANIX EXPERT]

Mechanix will have the same attacks as before but they have improved.

- Now his speed is much higher than Sonic's.

- His laser cannon is now rapid-fire.

- His charged laser beam is twice as large.

- His slice attacks lead into a 5-slash combo.

- His dash is much faster (nearly instantaneous).

- He now thrusts his palms in rapid succession for multiple projectile slice attacks.

- His thrusting energy attack is now non-linear and will curve as it follows Sonic.

- He can now run across the walls and ceiling, as well as jumping off the ceiling to attack.

He also has several new attacks:

- He can run around the room while firing a continuous laser beam which effectively rotates it across the room. Sonic will need to wall jump to avoid the laser.

- He can also stop himself on the ceiling and fire rapid-fire lasers from the left to right walls that Sonic will need to stop between.

After twenty difficult hits, Mechanix will fall.

.

Flickering and broken, Mechanix will back off and follow Robotnik's path. Before Sonic can chase, a voice calls behind him.

"Sire!"

He turns around to see Zaga, standing against the wall.

"Zaga?"

"In my journeys above ground, I heard word of an attack upon one of the new cities. I heard 'Robotnik', and I knew Mechanix would be here. Yet, you have already engaged him in battle. I saw it myself."

Sonic got angry.

"Why didn't you help?!"

"I knew you could defeat it. It was hardly at its full power."

"Then let's go and destroy it once and for all!"

Sonic turns to run, but stops as Zaga calls out.

"Wait!"

Sonic stops and turns, frustrated.

"What?!"

"Sire... after all this time, I have never asked. What is your name?"

Sonic smiled a little bit.

"Sonic. Sonic the hedgehog. Enough of that, we need to stop Robotnik! I won't let him get away again, damn it!"

They both run ahead.

.

**Locked Lab** [Act 1] (3/18)

_There are no enemies or rings in the level._

Zaga will follow Sonic as they go through the level. There will be large areas connected by narrow corridors, although this may occasionally invert with small rooms being connected by large hallways. All of the surfaces will be plated with a polished metal with some walls having advanced electronics and piping routed through with sidelights on the bottom and top. There may be computer consoles located in relatively random locations, as well as various machinery of very complex shape and form. The rooms are mostly dark, lit up by lamps, ceiling lights, or neon tubes of varying colors. Some security doors will be shut and require Sonic to find the right button to press or way to destroy the door.

Near the end, a large elevator shaft will be open. Sonic and Zaga will jump on various platforms within the shaft to get down, landing on the broken platform elevator at the bottom. They will enter a dark room filled with destroyed security doors, cameras, defense turrets, etc. Moving on from that, they will enter a nearly pitch black room with several monitors lit. Only one displays something besides static.

.

Sonic looks at the monitor.

"This must be what Robotnik is after."

Zaga turns and looks at it, but is uninterested.

"Sonic, our priority is to destroy Mechanix. Nothing is more important."

"No. Robotnik did not come here to capture the mayor or get the Chaos Emerald. He's here for something more. I need to know what it is! He's going to do something bigger than the Egg Tempest, bigger than Mechanix. He's never been like this before. He'll stop at nothing to get what he wants..."

Zaga looks at Sonic in silence, bothered by him.

"I will continue on. I trust your speed to catch up should you want to assist in saving your planet."

Zaga walks off, but Sonic reads the text anyway.

"Experiments have discovered a very interesting phenomenon related to the fragment. Analysis of the microscopic topology indicates that it was once a piece of a larger whole. This is similar to earlier analyses of mini-fragments which have been cut from the main piece and share the same topology. The mini-fragments also displayed a very slight, but measurable attraction to other mini-fragments and especially to the main rock. The main fragment itself displays an attraction towards a specific destination which is currently being measured. This attraction, strangely, is found in a force that is identical to an inter-molecular force. The current hypothesis is that all of the pieces are connected in an extra dimension or perhaps several, so that even if the structure is altered in our three dimensions, it is still a segment of a whole. With this new information, a research team has been scheduled to be sent back to the site within a month's time."

"Fragment? Is that what Robotnik is after...? Just a rock...?"

Sonic backs away, although he still looks at the screen.

"I shouldn't care what he wants to do, anyway. If I corner him and beat him down, he won't be able to do anything! There's nowhere he can go underground, and his only robot with him is Mechanix."

Sonic looked away.

"This is the end for him!"

He looked at the monitor one more time before dashing ahead.

.

[Act 2]

The rooms are now much darker and completely filled with machinery. Sonic will enter several rooms with lit monitors and will read what they say. They are as follows:

"The research teams have come back from the excavation site where they found the fragment. Although they have informed the mayor of the archaeological find, they have come back without additional pieces. The energy resonance is completely absent in the underground city."

"The fragment has a very interesting property. All energy that is directed at it is radiated in several multiples the amount. The multiples vary and change but it is always over twice the amount and it seems to have an upper bound as well. There is no explanation as to how the energy is amplified with the same concentration, but this information has sent the experiments and scientists into the highest security zone of the government laboratory. Further results will be mentioned as they come."

"The creature is not responding to any stimulus, provoked by energy or otherwise. The fragment which was removed from its carapace seems to have been a core component of its structure. Indeed, energy levels within the creature dropped to base level within seconds. What is especially astounding is that recent analysis of the creature's shell reveals it has been active for approximately twenty thousand years."

"Today the reconnaissance squad was sent to investigate a strange energy signal emanating from an underground location several hundred miles from Grand City. Using drilling equipment, they found that the signal came from a very large cave within the earth. What they found was remarkable: an ancient city perfectly intact. We do not know yet how old the city is, but none of its architecture resembles any civilization that has ever existed on Mobius. By chance, one living creature made its home there, although it could be more accurately described as an artificial being. It attacked the squad, but they managed to subdue it and bring it back. We are most excited about this opportunity!"

From the final monitor, Sonic will run past the room where the Chaos Emerald was held and through a long corridor. He'll catch up with Zaga.

.

"Sire, Mechanix is just ahead. Are you ready?"

"Definitely. I'm not going to hold back no matter what they have in store for us. No more excuses! I'll make them both crash into the ground!"

They move through the corridor and enter a wide area. It is absolutely dark, without any emergency lights on. However, in the distance, Sonic sees two glowing eyes pierce the shadow.

"Mechanix!"

A cackle comes from where the eyes are.

"You chose to live, then? Oh, you fool."

Sonic recognized the voice.

"Robotnik! Even if you have some kind of drilling machine to free you from underground, I'm not going to let you get away, no matter what! There's nowhere you can run away to anymore! Give it up!"

He cackles again.

"Haha. Is that so?"

A switch is heard to be flipped. Slowly, a hum starts to rise. High pitched electric buzzing and mechanical squeals join in. The orchestration rises in volume as a circle of light appears. It is several stories tall, and the circle is frequently disturbed by rotating mechanical parts. The light brighens the entire room, and the silhouettes of Robotnik and Mechanix fade into detail. A third figure stands between them, a somewhat small man, trembling. As the light reaches a visible stage, Sonic sees that Robotnik has a gun cocked at the man's head. Sonic recognizes the man instantly.

"The mayor!"

"That is correct. As I said before, you can do what you want with him. Go ahead and spindash through him, if you want. I only needed him because you showed up and delayed Mechanix. Eliminating his bodyguards was simple enough by myself."

Sonic didn't believe it.

"Eliminated?"

Robotnik gestured behind Sonic, and he turned around to see the walls which spread out from the entrance. The light blue light of the giant circle illuminated them, the bodies of the mayor's guards slumped lifelessly against the walls. Sonic couldn't say anything.

"I see you have with you an Old Mobian. Hm. The warrior Zaga, are you not?"

Zaga was nonplussed.

"I do not care what you know. You look nowhere near as strong as Mechanix. If you stand in my way, I will kill you in one blow."

"Haha. You have made quite a simple response for someone like yourself. I know everything about you, Zaga, and you have not changed since those ancient days, I am sure. Very interesting! I am already incorporating you into my master plan. You should be grateful."

Sonic stepped forward.

"Enough with your ravings, you damned mad man! What do you need that fragment for?"

"This?"

Robotnik pulled the fragment out, a black rock that was the size of his finger. Zaga fidgeted.

"What do you think keeps Zaga alive? You read that report, did you not? He is twenty thousand years old!"

"He was sealed away! What does that matter, anyway?!"

"Fool! What does being sealed matter? His biological processes should have stopped functioning within weeks! As if he was not old enough in his own time! He, as well, holds another one of these fragments, within himself!"

Sonic didn't look to Zaga, but he was slightly bothered. Robotnik continued.

"These fragments absorb the energy around them and emit them in several times the amount. Electrical, mechanical, chaos energy, and even life energy are multiplied by its power. Someone with a fragment inside of them could live for many multiples their usual life expectancy due to its power. However, there is a limit to these weak pieces."

Robotnik snapped the fragment in half and throws it to Mechanix. As soon as he catches it, it shatters into dust.

"Mechanix's resonating energy from the Chaos Emeralds! With too much input, it is worthless. There is so much raw power that it destroys itself! The Old Mobians realized this."

Sonic then looked at Zaga for a response. Zaga grew more unsettled.

"These fragments were what changed them from primitive tribes to a unified, sophisticated civilization. However, they desired ever more power. They spent generations focusing thousands of pounds of the rock into one point, and they were successful. They created the Black Emerald."

Zaga shouted.

"How do you know all of this!? Our civilization was _destroyed_!"

"I am the most intelligent being that has ever existed. Decoding all of the facets of what remained from your cities took only a few seconds of a passing glance. I know more about your world than you could ever know..."

The mayor squirmed, but Robotnik strengthened his hold and pushed the pistol harder on his head.

"...such as how the Black Emerald's overuse led to it being shot out into space to some place no one knows. Of course, the fragments were still around. Since then, however, they disappeared. Without any energy to feed off of, they lose anything indicating that they are different from any other rock. Those creatures in Ka'ralei, they continue to live because of those fragments."

"The hell does it matter? Put down that gun!"

"You will listen to what I have to say, _hedgehog_. Do you think I will not pull the trigger again?"

Sonic gritted his teeth and made no response.

"These fragments have an additional property. All of them are connected to each other. They give away each other's location. Using the fragment, I will locate the Black Emerald and it will be another card in my hand."

Sonic quickly replied.

"There were plenty of fragments in Ka'ralei! Why did you need to come here? Why did you need to kill so many people for something you don't need?!"

"Oh, I took some of those too. Better accuracy is always a plus, of course. I need the Chaos Emerald, anyway."

Sonic growled. Robotnik was quiet.

"Is that it?! Is that all you need to explain, damn it!? I'm sick of having to listen to you!"

"Oh yes. Go ahead and attack me now."

Robotnik pushes the mayor, who stumbles forward and falls on his side. Sonic quickly dashes forward. Mechanix blocks his path in an instant. Robotnik snickers.

"Oh? Where is your speed?"

"Damn it! Mechanix should barely be able to move!"

Zaga walked towards the two, as the mayor quickly got on his feet and ran.

"With enough energy, the damage Mechanix suffers can be reversed. However, in such a short time, it would require incredible amounts-"

Robotnik interrupted Zaga as Sonic leaped back from an attack by Mechanix.

"The Chaos Emeralds. Yes, hedgehog, he has six now! Do you think your spines can leave a mark on a being who has six different access points to infinite energy?! And Zaga, do not speak as if you do not know them, fool. You know why I seek them out!"

"No, I do not! I have never heard of such a thing. It is true I have a Black Rock, but our entire civilization was built on Black Rocks. I did not know about the Black Emerald, however..."

"Haha! Yes, yes! Of course you do not. I see, I see. This is very interesting, indeed. However, enough talk. My diversion will only last so long. I must get going quite soon."

Sonic was looking at Zaga, concerned about the way he was talking. Hearing 'diversion', he quickly turned around.

"Diversion?!"

"Yes, hedgehog. Yes, I can see you know what I speak of. The Egg Tempest is just a way to distract the attention of the world, to give me more time. As soon as I exterminate both you and Zaga, I will find the last Chaos Emerald and give it to Mechanix. Then, with his true power and the Black Emerald, I will destroy the entire world personally, decimating each city, killing each person, each woman and child, until I have a blank slate to erect my Robotnikland. Then... then... at that time... I can finally..."

Sonic snaps, and yells.

"All of this slaughter, destruction, and mayhem! I can't take it anymore! I'm sick of this, I'm sick of you! I don't care what's right or wrong, I'll kill both of you!"

He rushes forward, blinded by anger.

.

[Act 2 Boss : MECHANIX MASTER]

Mechanix will of course, have the same attacks as just before, but he is even stronger.

- His speed is now twice as high as Sonic's.

- All of his attacks are quicker and larger.

- His slice attacks lead into a 6-slash combo.

- The dash is barely able to be seen.

- He can combine attacks, such that his thrust palm attack can be mixed with his laser cannon.

- Along with running on every surface in the room, he will be able to hover for three seconds before falling.

The most dangerous aspect of the fight is how fast he is, which will require Sonic to react within a second's notice whenever he changes attack patterns. Both Sonic and Zaga will be fighting, which lowers the difficulty in the fight to a bearable amount. Mechanix will take twenty-four hits before falling.

During the fight, Robotnik will move to the other side of the giant metal circle, which is only slightly lit up by the ambiance. Neither of them will be able to reach him, however, as he enters a chamber within the ring that is locked by a door.

.

Mechanix buzzes as electric arcs whip around his body. Sonic starts spindashing when a shockwave knocks him on his side. Looking back, the giant ring glows bright, its center starting to fluctuate like heat waves in a mirage. Robotnik walks through a glass-windowed compartment on the ring's lower edge. Sonic doesn't look at Zaga.

"Zaga, destroy Mechanix. It's finally time..."

Sonic doesn't waste any time and spindashes towards Robotnik.

Robotnik is startled, and fires his gun at Sonic. However, Sonic avoids the bullets and zooms close. The gun Robotnik holds runs out of ammunition, and he quickly pockets it. As Sonic comes close, Robotnik grabs his limbs and quickly bends his own back. Sonic swings into the air, completely surprised, and Robotnik turns his legs. Sonic feels himself falling, and Robotnik lets go. Sonic slams his head into the ground and tumbles away. His eyesight blurs and wobbles, and he stumbles on his arms and knees.

"Fool. I have long since recognized that you could attack me directly. I have trained myself just in case of such a scenario. Similarly, should I ever need to go on my own offensive, I also trained myself in firearms."

He loads a new cartridge into his pistol, and aims it at Sonic as he finally gets on his feet.

"Put that gun away... fight me man to man, you coward!"

"I do not play by your rules, hedgehog. I play by mine."

The area inside the ring starts to spin, a cloudy form appearing. The machine gets louder and brighter.

"They have long been experimenting with teleportation technology. It is an impressive work, although incomplete."

The cloud mixes in color and intensity, rapidly swirling and spinning like a whirlpool suddenly ripped into pieces.

"It will not send you anywhere near this city. Or near this planet."

The machine's din turns into both a piercing screech and a rumbling hum. The lines of the cloud blur in movement so quick and violent they seem to be superimposed on each other.

"Or near this reality. Perhaps, it will even kill you."

Sonic looked at Robotnik with a grim face.

"I don't care."

He runs toward him at the fastest speed he can manage while Robotnik calmly walks towards him. Just as they meet, Sonic leaps and pulls back his fist. As he falls towards Robotnik, he fires the gun. Sonic yells, goes limp in mid-air, and collapses right in front of Robotnik's feet. The bullet had shot through Sonic's stomach. He groans in agony, clutching the wound. Robotnik lowers his gun.

"In the end, you are a hedgehog. Without your speed, you are no great being."

Robotnik pulls back his leg and thrashes Sonic right where he shot him. Sonic rolls across the floor, towards the machine. Its noise floods the room.

"Without your friends, you are no great hero."

Robotnik pulls back his leg again and kicks him straight in the wound. He tumbles over himself, too much in pain to move his hands over it. The noise rings in his ears, and his eyesight begins to blur again.

"Without your attitude, you are no great hedgehog."

Robotnik kicks him again and he slides into the hot metal of the giant ring. The light casts his own shadow ahead of him, as if it was pulling out of his body. He can't breathe. All he hears is that unending scream of the machinery. His eyesight falls back and forth and Robotnik's figure is a ghostly shape standing tall above him.

"You're just an animal!"

He heaves Sonic up with both hands, and Sonic sees Robotnik's face up close. From such proximity, through those dark goggles, he can even see his eyes. They stared at Sonic with an impossible ferocity. Then, Sonic was in the air, and he felt the air around him leaving him behind. The air disappeared, and his eyes only saw white. His ears only heard the noise, which covered every pitch and was the only thing in his head. He fell into the noise, and sank into it. As he slowly fell, the noise, too, left him. His ears stopped ringing. He couldn't see anything anymore. He couldn't even hear his breathing. He vanished.


	5. Sonic Ballistic, Part 4

Part 4

Sonic slowly came to. His head was swirling and he felt like the world was rushing past him. He saw his hand before him, and stood up. His wounds were healed, although still sore. He looked at the ground and saw it was changing colors. Patterns shifted and coalesced around him, with the sky an ever changing painting of vibrant hues and intensities.

"Am I hallucinating..."

He walks a short while and comes to the end of the giant platform he stands on. Beneath is more of the unending painting, that does not seem to be the texture of any wall or surface, but an endless form that replaced the solid blue of normal sky. The very platform he stood on hovered within it. He looked up and around.

"Where am I?"

He notices a glimmer of light off of a shiny surface in the middle of the platform. He walks toward it, seeing it as a power ring. He saw his reflection on its shiny gold surface, and grabbed it. Suddenly, the sky changed. The colors and shapes and forms started moving in one direction. The platform he stood on changed as well, stretching into threads of color that shot like bullets into the distance. It became a road, curving and spinning as it vanished into the nonexistent horizon. He felt like the entire world was rushing around him, and through him as well. It gave him a rush, and he even felt the power ring tug him.

"This... this is the energy of the Emeralds. It must have helped me heal when I was out... this place, I remember it now! This is where the Chaos Emeralds hide! The Special Zone!"

As he said that, a group of objects rushed overhead. It was a circle of the Emeralds, rotating and facing Sonic. Startled, Sonic motions a step, but they fly down the road at an incredible speed. The power ring yanked forward and Sonic hopped to keep step. He understands, and races forward.

**Special Zone** [Act 1] (4/19)

_This level has no enemies. _

The sky is an endless dash of colors, mixing as they can in their rushing streams. The ground that Sonic walks on is similar to Silver Skyway's, except with the colors forming different, overlapping layers of shapes. The level will sometimes loop, but it will mostly consist of curves going down and up. After a while, Sonic will catch up to the first Emerald. Instead of grabbing it, it will fade away. In the background, its respective color will slowly be mixed out completely by the other colors.

As Sonic dashes on, he will eventually come across power rings. As he collects them, his speed increases. He will reach the second Emerald. As he passes through that, its color fades out in the background as well.

As he moves on, a specific line of rings (a line of rings referring to how they are typically laid out – in long rows, hovering above the ground) will pull off the ground and curl into a giant circle of rings. As it moves onward, rings that come from down the road will be collected into it. Sonic will eventually catch up with it and be running at the same pace as the circle is spinning. At its tangent with the road, Sonic will then continually collect rings and his speed will steadily increase even further. He will soon see the next Emerald ahead of him, spinning in the same fashion as if it was inside a giant wheel. However, Sonic will not be quite fast enough to reach it. This is when another circle of rings peels off the road and Sonic will be at its tangent. As Sonic's speed increases while he picks up the rings, the circle of rings itself will pick up more rings from the road rushing by. In this way, when the circle of rings' center becomes tangent with the circular path of the Emerald, Sonic will eventually run into it himself. As he passes through it, its color will similarly vanish. He'll quickly collect all the rings in the circle of rings and run on by himself. His speed at this point will be several times his normal maximum speed.

After a while, the line of rings will peel off again, but this time, they will rotate to their side so that they lie parallel to the ground. The line will whip into the air, and Sonic can jump onto the line to run on it as an additional path. The rings, lying flat, serve as another road. When Sonic runs by, the ring-road will again peel off and fly back towards Sonic in a manner resembling the effect of the lightning shield from Sonic 3. The ring-road will have loops, dips, and hills just as the normal road does. It will even have its own lines of rings hovering above them, and even those lines may peel off to form their own sub-ring-roads. In these several layers of ring-roads, if there is a gap in the line of rings, it will manifest itself as a gap that Sonic can jump over. If he falls, he will land to a lower ring-road, or on to the main road if he's on the lowest ring-road. He will eventually see the fourth Emerald, however it quickly dashes above. Sonic will need to climb to the highest ring-road in order to nab it. When he does, the background will again eliminate the Emerald's color. At the same time, all of the ring-roads will lose structure and simply be quickly sucked to Sonic. He'll fall back to the main road and receive a massive speed boost from all of the rings, and should be several ten times his max speed.

The next form of rings that will appear is the ring-rail. Instead of peeling off like the last two forms, rings will pause before Sonic (in that they move backwards faster than he is moving forward, giving the illusion from Sonic's view that they stopped). The rings from behind them will clack into each other, and they will all rotate in a wave pattern (like if you lie a deck of cards flat with each card partially covering the other one, and then flip the first card in the line, except perpetually). When the line is sufficiently long enough, it will move back in its original direction (or unpause). When Sonic hits the first ring, he will be dragged through them at incredible speeds (similar to a light speed dash). However, these ring-rails do not contribute to his overall speed, and when he lands on the main road after passing through a ring-rail, he will return to his original speed from after the fourth Emerald. These ring-rails will also peel off the ground and into the air, forming elaborate designs that will send Sonic flipping and spinning. Occasionally, one ring-rail will send Sonic flying into another one. When the fifth Emerald comes into view, it, too, will fly into the air. The ring-rails will now only curve from the main road up into the air, but not quite reach the Emerald. Sonic will need to time a jump so that he hits the ring-rail, and gets rocketed up into the air, to fall back down and pass through the Emerald. Should he miss, the same curve pattern will repeat after a short while. When the Emerald is passed through, its color will disappear. There will only be two colors in the background, now, although they will still mesh and change intensity. Sonic's speed will still be the same from before.

The final form of rings is the ring-boost. It is formed like the ring-rails were, except when the ring-rail is complete, it will fold on itself and form a torus made out of the rotating rings clacked directly against each other. This torus will be facing Sonic and will wrap around the main road. When Sonic passes through its center, his speed will double temporarily. Also, as soon as he passes through the center, the rings will unfold and be sucked back to Sonic like in the case of the ring-road. First the ring-boosts will simply be around the main road, but later they will be in the air. If Sonic jumps through one, he'll be sent rocketing through the sky. Should he hit another ring-boost, it will steer him in a new direction. The sixth Emerald will be flying much faster than the last ones, and Sonic will need to jump through the ring-boosts just to see it. He'll need to chain ring-boosts both on the road and in the air to finally get enough speed to get it. Once he does, he'll pass through it, and only one color will remain in the background. It only varies in intensity, some areas being darker, others lighter. His speed will have increased by about 50%.

In the final run, all of the forms of rings will appear. Ring-circles will roll across ring-roads, and ring-rails will send Sonic hurtling towards ring-boosts. Early on, Sonic will catch up to the final Emerald, but every time he speeds up, it speeds up the same amount minus only a little bit. In order to catch it, he'll need to always be accelerating and chain successive runs through lines of rings, under ring-circles, and through ring-boosts. When he finally passes through it, the background will fade into shades of gray, leaving only Sonic and the road to be in color.

After that, the road will level out. The Master Emerald will hover ahead. As Sonic runs towards it, all of the rings he's collected will be quickly sucked from him to it. The thousands of rings will exit him in seconds. Shortly after Sonic is expired of rings, but still running, the Emerald will spew the rings out into a giant circle that expands very far, with the road being its center. The rings will then narrow into the road and lengthen out into a helical coil around the road. Finally, Sonic will hit the Master Emerald, and his speed will sharply increase. He will accelerate wildly through the long coil of rings, which soon turn into a blur of gold. He'll be going so fast he'll lift off the road underneath him and start to fly. The road turns into a line of white, and the gold slowly fades into white as well. Soon, Sonic is completely covered in white. He feels like he hits something, however, and his feet catch onto ground again. His speed is indeterminable due to the lack of reference points. He is running again.

.

The white fades into figures and shapes. Sonic slows down and finds himself running across metal. When the white disappears, he stops completely. He looks around and sees old, broken machinery and metalwork all around him. The entire area is dilapidated, and Sonic enters a long hallway with long glass windows. He sees Mobius slowly rotate far away and finds that he's inside an old space station.

"...What? For a portal like that, it didn't send me very far. Why this space station, though...? It doesn't matter, Robotnik is down there. Whatever he's doing, I have to stop it! I have to get there..."

Sonic looks down the hallway, flooded with darkness. He runs into it.

.

**Space Ruins** [Act 1] (4/20)

There are no enemies, but there are rings here. The design for this level will be a very worn industrial setting. Scaffolding will be bare, metal rusting and broken, pipes and wires exposed. All of the areas are very dark, lit up either by dim yellow lights that cover a wide area or very small red bulbs that cover only their immediate perimeter. Inside, the background will be very complex machines, all connected. They will be lit up by very dim blue lights or the same red bulbs from the foreground. Sometimes there will be glass windows that will show space, Mobius, and perhaps some of the space station as well. The level will consist of several types: the long vista hallways covered with glass windows, the maintenance hallways covered with pipes and lit up by yellow lights, connecting areas that consist of curves, jumps and hazards (such as broken parts, electric arcs, steam, etc.), and narrow areas filled with industrial machinery that Sonic will need to use precise timing to jump, wall jump, and roll through. At the end, he will come into a very long glass tunnel that connects two sides of the space station, lit up by red lights. After running through it for a short while, he'll hear a crash behind him.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

A large metal ball quickly rolls from behind Sonic. It bears the runic inscriptions reminiscent of the Old Mobians' creations, however they are much simpler.

It has several attacks:

- it will roll ahead and fall back to trip Sonic,

- catch up to Sonic's speed,

- roll around the edges of glass tunnel (Sonic will need to jump over it repetitively),

- roll around from behind or ahead of Sonic and pause from wherever it is positioned and quickly fire a short laser beam,

- have two side compartments extend and rotate with the main part in the middle (such that the compartments skid the circumference of the tube),

- move back and forward in with compartments extended(Sonic will need to either jump or roll under its metal bars to avoid getting hit),

- pause its rotation as like before but fires lasers from its two extended compartments as well,

- and finally rush far ahead of Sonic in that configuration and open its main part to reveal a large cannon that will charge for five seconds before firing a very large laser beam that Sonic can only roll under. The ball can only be attacked when this cannon is revealed.

Eight hits will cause it to burst into flames and stop moving.

.

[Act 2]

The glass tube will enter the space station again. The design will be the same, although Sonic will also go into more "external" areas – that is, areas like the glass tube that are mostly removed from the main structure. Enemies will appear, being very simple robots with similar inscriptions, but are only functional in design and do not resemble anything. They will be weak, but plentiful. When destroyed, only a Black Rock fragment will be left. The industrial areas will be the bulk of this level, however.

Through one such section, Sonic will come across a very large room. As soon as he does, he completely loses traction and flies to the other end. A rusty door blocks passage onward. However, Sonic cannot spindash through it as the door is flat on the wall. The room's shape is a large, but regular polygon. As there is a lack of gravity in this room, in order to move Sonic will need to land on a surface and jump in a new direction. In the middle of the room is an emerald shaped cast, and on the sides are broken platforms with Black Rock crust on them. This was the room where the Black Emerald was created. In order to proceed, Sonic will need to build speed by progressively jumping off the walls without stopping, and crash into the rusty door.

Gravity will return, and Sonic will race down a hallway. At the end, he will come into a very wide room. All of the machinery and electronics connect to a point on the other side. As Sonic comes to it, he will see a giant tube in a loop.

.

Suddenly, as he steps towards it, the floor lights up below him. The light dashes through all of the tiles on the floor, then up the walls and across the ceiling. Machinery starts to hum and the room lights up. Before Sonic can properly react, light is projected onto a blank wall. An image of an echidna appears. He is old, covered with scars, and emaciated.

"Sire, please halt. Before you continue, allow me to give you the information you need to operate this gate. This space building was first constructed so that the Black Emerald could be created with minimal interference from the natural forces of Mobius. It took many, many years, but in the end, its creation allowed our civilization to flourish. However, we were greedy... we advanced so quickly, thirsty to conquer the heavens. We wanted to test our own power, as the gods of this world. We tested it on each other... and, we sank into a bloodrage so primitive, that we doomed ourselves. The Black Emerald was passed from hand to bloody hand, the symbol of godlihood. Our leaders, who took it last, thinking only of vengeance and pride, summoned the fist of the heavens... and now, we seek refuge like worms within the planet we had forsaken. Our leaders... they took our ships and fled to the stars, away from the world they decimated. I... was one of those cowards... but I sought to protect our world however I can, and so I took the Black Emerald here, to its origin. I created this gate to cast it into exile, far from Mobius. I stayed up here and watched over the world, unable to do anything else.

...However, with the Black Rock within me, I continue to live, watching over this world, seeing only the clouds and a silent earth. I suffer, without food, without water, my existence solely supported by these Rocks, that I continue to put within myself. How many is it now? Five hundred? A thousand? I should be dead, several lifetimes over, and I feel the pain, but I watch over this world, and this gate, with hope for my people to return to the light. Now that you are here, my spirit can rest, knowing that Mobius has regained life. Since this recording, I have chose death, for I saw a mechanical being walk upon the surface, the creation of my descendants. The instant I saw it, I knew it was our savior. I trust in it completely, and my trust was well placed.

If you seek the Black Emerald, whatever your reason, you may enter this gate and find it, wherever it landed. My only request is that you prove yourself against my creation, so that my trust in you is warranted! Eralus!"

From the ceiling, a large tangle of pipes and metal start moving. Before Sonic can fully see what it is, it drops onto the floor and attacks!

.

[Act 2 Boss]

Eralus is a large, mechanical creature resembling a lotus flower, with its leaves made of pipes bent over each other and its bud a complex crystalline electronic component. The leaves will be bent up, too high for Sonic to jump over. The outer layer of leaves will rotate flat across the floor, forming a slicing hazard that can damage Sonic. As it rotates, it will fire projectile attacks from its core.

These are:

- multiple napalm-esque energy attacks that burst into a column of fire when they hit the ground,

- a large energy orb which scatters into smaller shots that Sonic will need to dodge through,

- and a small, spinning square of energy which turns into a wave of fire when it lands.

When Eralus' inner layer of leaves bends to a 45 degree angle, it will stop rotating. This is Sonic's chance to attack by jumping from the outer layer onto the inner layer, and then at the core. If he spends too much time waiting, the core will release hundreds of small pellets that Sonic will need to dodge for half a minute. When inside, Sonic can land four hits before the bud releases an electric discharge that will knock him out. Sixteen hits will destroy it.

.

The projection fizzes out for a while, and then returns.

"You have won... very well."

Energy suddenly bursts into the tube and it lights up the room. Inside the loop, the familiar cloudiness appears. As the image begins to turn and spin, the old echidna continued.

"I do not know where the Black Emerald has landed, but the coordinates have not changed. If you bring it back to Mobius, perhaps our world can return to its former glory. I am sure that, whoever you are, if you bring back the Black Emerald in a time where we can breathe the air, our old civilization will rise from the dead! I trust in you, with all the years I spent in pain."

As he finishes, the gate is fully open. Sonic walks towards it, with the disturbing images of his defeat by Robotnik fresh in his memory. Without regret, he leaps in.

He returns to the Special Zone, running down the same rainbow path. However, the sky is much different. Instead of blurred grays shifting between each other, there are distinct, sharply contrasting shapes that spasmatically displace and flash colors. As he runs down, the shapes get smaller and move more erratically. Sonic then notices a strange black mass ahead of him. The road he runs on then suddenly shatters into pieces, and he barely catches himself from falling. The road, broken in pieces, still stretches toward the black area.

.

**Void** [Act 1] (4/21)

_There are no rings or enemies in this level. _

Sonic will start off on the rainbow road pieces. The movement of color within it is very slow, and all of the colors are much dimmer. Sonic will be jumping from piece to piece as he approaches the blackness. As he does so, the shapes in the background will continue to decrease in size. After an eighth of the level, the background will effectively be static. The pieces of road will be larger, now, although they will be bent in shape anywhere from a simple hill to folding a cave in itself. These complex folds and the gaps between the sections will make up the rest of the act, and Sonic will not be able to go too fast or he risks falling. As he traverses the act, at certain points an Emerald will rush by him in the background. When the seventh Emerald flies by, he will come across the edge of the black mass.

Here, the road ends right before it. The mass is pure black with white streamers flashing across its surface like light on the top of water. The Master Emerald will block the way onward, its top face pointing towards Sonic.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

The Master Emerald will not move, however the seven Chaos Emeralds will appear from the mass, covered in a thick, black fluid. They will make an attack and trade turns in a rapid pattern. While one is in position, the other six will be a shield around the Master Emerald.

- The first Emerald will move behind Sonic and fire four large beams from top to bottom.

- The second Emerald will move above Sonic and fire four large beams from left to right.

- The third will position above the Master Emerald and home in on Sonic, firing four shots.

- The fourth will attempt to ram Sonic.

- The fifth will rain down a hundred small shots that Sonic will need to run through as they fall.

- The sixth will fire four energy balls at the road, which transform into waves of increasing wavelength that rush towards Sonic.

- The seventh will toss energy balls up that burst into large explosions when they land.

Sonic can only attack the Master Emerald in the short time span as the Emeralds change, because the shield disperses for a few seconds. After eight hits, the Chaos Emeralds will return to the Master Emerald's side and revolve around it.

- They will all charge up for a final attack: an unavoidable beam that will eliminate Sonic.

If Sonic just hits the Master Emerald one more time, he'll pass through it and the Chaos Emeralds will simply fade out.

.

[Act 2]

Inside the black form, the white streamers will arc across the black sky like lightning (except instead of flashing and disappearing, they continue to snake elsewhere). The road has died of color, leaving Sonic alone with hue. As he moves on, the road will end. Floating in the realm are asteroid-like structures that share organic and artificial shapes, with crevices slowly pulsing in light and a silhouette of shapes converging and dissipating all over its surface. Most of the time they will be stationary. When Sonic lands on one, his gravity will be stuck to its surface like in Falling Frenzy, however with enough speed he can jump off. Parts of the act will be jumping from structure to structure.

However, long roads will appear again, and Sonic can run along those like normal. However, normal will only last for so long. The gravity may slowly switch, or Sonic loses his ability to jump, spindash, or wall jump. With a lack of enemies or hazards, Sonic will merely need to worry about getting frustrated as he makes his way onward.

Three-quarters through, Sonic will see bits of broken architecture floating about. As he jumps across hovering pillars and scattered brick roads, the architecture will become more advanced and modern. He'll eventually come across a large building, split in many pieces that float away from each other. As he enters the building, gravity and his movements will be normal. The rooms are filled with sculptures and engravings next to highly advanced structures of abstract shape and design. He will finally come to a large room with a mural of Mechanix in the center. The entire room is filled with Mechanix-shaped sculptures and mosaics of him.

Moving on, Sonic will continue through a small corridor. He'll come to a narrow room filled with creations of similar design as Mechanix's body. Armor, weaponry, bodysuits, complex machinery, and even scale models of buildings are made in his form. Later on, painted scrolls show the old Mechanix Seal, in the area before his actual containment area. It shows the early areas of the Mechanix Seal, and a map depicting its location relative to other Old Mobian underground areas. A large scroll depicts Mechanix restrained by iron bars in a large metal contraption that has several bars and wires crossed over a large manifold. More technical and detailed scrolls explain in pictures how Mechanix was released, studied, activated, and how he worked. Then, more scrolls appear as designs based off of Mechanix's design, one being of a bodysuit.

Upon exiting, Sonic sees a broken bridge with a field of shattered columns floating in concentric circles around it connect the building to another part of it. Halfway through it, the streamers in the background will blur race wildly and become thicker and thicker. Suddenly, the entire background will become white, and all of the structures in sight will repair themselves and become new. As the white fades out, a blue, cloudy sky will appear instead. Mountains will rise in the distance and fields and forests will rush under the columns towards Sonic.

.

Sonic looks around, surprised. The bridge spans over a very high distance, and he can see very far. From everything that he sees, it looks like he returned to Mobius. He shakes his head and rubs his eyes. The world is very real, and he hears voices further down the bridge. Coming close to them, he sees two echidnas, covered with bound cloth and metal rings wrapped around their waists and limbs. They bore inscriptions much like Zaga's, except much finer and more elegant, with very detailed patterns and designs.

"I had to do business with some Migatchans again today. It is rather troublesome," one spoke contemptuously.

"My, with those ingrates? Their entire culture is still so primitive. Not as bad as the Angelics, of course, or Zexa knows the Anazze. I heard they descended from a farmer's clan during the First Great Age."

The first chortled snootily. "Oh, that would explain it most assuredly. At least the Angelics secluded themselves on that Floating Island of theirs so that we do not need to deal with them. Those Migatchans demanded for me to treat them as equals!"

"Barbarians! You should not stand for that."

"It was a mighty disgrace on my family's name, and if they were so intent on insulting me for being inequitable, they should have had the tact to appoint a duel!"

"Hoho! Tact! They care not for propriety or honor. They are animals."

Sonic twitched. He walked towards them, to show them a piece of his mind, but the first quickly spoke again.

"Frankly, they should just die. They should all just drop dead. They do not deserve what we gave them, the freedom of the above-world, the possibility of our Images of Mechanix, of which this Great Age was built upon. Most of all, they do not deserve that..."

"Hey!-" Sonic yelled, but suddenly a flash of white blinded him and he held his hand over his eyes. As he lowered them, he found himself back in the Void.

"... what was that, just now? Why did I see that? Was that real?..."

.

[Act 3]

Crossing the remainder of the bridge, Sonic will entire a hallway with tall windows and an arched ceiling. It will lead to a square room, and the next open doorway leads to a catwalk. The catwalk is circular, the hole in the middle opening up into a very large chamber below, about ten stories tall. Above the catwalk is a dome, completely covered in a fresco. The fresco depicts echidnas dressed in the Mechanix-styled bodysuits from before, exiting a hole in the ground. The ground around them, and stretching to the far mountains and a cyan sea, is mostly white. Even the sky is bleach white, without a single cloud. However, the sun shines brightly across the entire fresco. One of the echidnas, through the visor of the suit, can be seen to be crying.

The next room is a broken stairwell. Pieces of the wall have broke off and floated away, which Sonic may need to use to move past debris blockages. At the end of his descent, the doorway will bring him into the incredibly large room below the dome and catwalk. The room is completely full of sculptures and monuments dedicated to Mechanix, with a very large, realistic statue of him standing in front of a giant, broken tainted-glass window. His design is copied everywhere, on the walls, on the tiles, and even on the columns. The whole room seems dedicated to his image. The next doorway is broken down, so to move on Sonic will need to break through vents in the floor.

They will lead into another room full of items and machinery made in the design of Mechanix. A large scroll depicts how the world was the way it was because of the radiation, and how the air was made toxic. It also described how all Images of the Ultimate Being were not affected by the radiation (and so, how the bodysuits protected the echidnas who went above ground). The reason is because the Images absorb the radiation and convert it into non-toxic energy (mechanical, chemical, heat, etc.) Many scrolls attempt to describe this process. On the far right of the room is a doorway that leads to a small arcade.

.

In the middle of the arcade, white suddenly washes through the cracks in the walls, and color peels onto all of the surfaces. The walls are now freshly painted with a fire pattern. An echidna runs towards Sonic. Before he can look at the walls, the echidna shouts out.

"Sire! I have received dire news."

"What? Where did you come from?" Sonic asks, but a voice comes from behind him and he jumps to the side.

"Quiet down, you! I am about to instruct some young men into the study of our savior, and you come-" an echidna spoke in long robes.

"The elders of Saliom were assassinated!" burst out the other one.

Suddenly, the mood changed. The priestly echidna took a step back.

"That... that does not concern us. We have no contact with them, no trade and..."

"The assassin committed suicide on site. He... bore the mark of Alastra."

"What?! Did our elders command someone to... Or are we being framed? This is bad. The Saliomans are the most blood-thirsty of us all..."

Before Sonic could say a word, the echidnas vanished like mist, and the paintings on the walls peeled away in a blur of white. He was left alone in the hallway again.

"These scenes, are they hallucinations? Is it something to do with this weird place? This building has to be from Old Mobius, but why is it here? Where is here, anyway?"

At the end of the arcade is a slightly newer room, with the Images of Mechanix becoming different from their original design. The scrolls have changed texture and aren't as worn and torn. A large one describes the general state of the world, its geography and details about the radiation. Another depicts calculations regarding the flow of energy from the radiation to non-toxic energy. A common phrase begins to repeat itself, although Sonic cannot read it. Smaller scrolls show portraits of small villages being created above-ground using the technology of the Images. The room ends abruptly; the rest of the building broke off.

Here, Sonic will need to wall jump across columns and jump on and through pieces of the building that have floated off. He'll come to the top of an isolated structure which apparently was not ripped from the main building. Moving down the wall's ledges and across its underside by means of jumping on small bricks, he will enter through a hole. The design is completely different, with blue and purple tiles and floating ribbons. It is very similar to _Hidden Palace_ from _Sonic & Knuckles_.

He will have entered a room filled with smaller scrolls, covered in text. They are plastered all over the walls. There is then a large scroll with the schematics of a large machine taking up its entire length. It covers the rest of the room, but at the very end of the scroll, there are seven small gems described in little detail. A broken door blocks the next room.

As soon as Sonic spindashes through, white light flashes past him.

"This again! What am I going to see now..."

The room has seven columns surrounding a central pedestal. On top of one is a steady light that brightens the entire room. The walls were dark and covered with the same tile. On the pedestal is paper on which looks like a map of Mobius. Many cloaked figures stand around it.

One speaks, "Despite our diplomatic efforts with the new leaders of Saliom, they have declared war on us. They simply refuse to believe that we had no control over the assassinations and the assaults in their cities."

Another adds, "Similar to the Fere'nau leaders. With their elders killed as part of that explosion, they immediately suspected us due to their alliance with Saliom."

A third says, "The Angelics and the Migatchans are already at war. Ka'ralei is threatening us and have mobilized at their borders with both the Migatchans and the Saliom."

The first speaks again, "Despite our diplomacy, we have our Black Rock machinations and our troops fitted with the latest in Image technology. We are prepared to engage at any moment."

An echidna runs into the room from behind Sonic.

"We just received a report from Anazze. They captured a Fere'nau attack force after they assassinated their leaders."

The second yells, "Damn it! This is becoming the worst-possible scenario. The Seven Lands will never reunite like this... especially as this global war begins to explode."

The third quickly snaps, "We cannot worry about our species as a whole. Our own civilization is at threat; we can worry about educating and raising the lesser races when we take away their power to destroy us."

Their was a murmur of agreement.

"What did those peoples do, anyway? We rediscovered the Ultimate Being, Mechanix, and created Images in his likeness which are the foundation of this Second Great Age. We created this world. We are this world. Everyone else is inferior!"

Sonic gets angry again and walks forward, but white quickly floods past.

"What is this!? What's going on here?"

The room returns to its normal state. The room is brighter than before due to cracks in the walls that allow the Void's odd light to enter. The light from on top of the pillar had disappeared, however. High on the wall rests a mosaic. At the top is a lying figure of Mechanix. From his body, various Images are projected, the largest one being exactly the same from the one depicted in the scroll in the previous mission. It lies tangent to a large circle which takes up the rest of the space. Seven cities are exaggeratedly drawn, and above them, connected to the largest Image by rainbow-lines, are the seven Chaos Emeralds. On closer inspection, the seven pillars in the room have bas-reliefs of an Emerald, along with unique inscriptions and designs. On the pillar that Sonic saw the light from before are inscriptions that are very similar to those on the echidnas he saw throughout the building. On another pillar are inscriptions that are similar to those of Zaga's.

"This mosaic... So the Chaos Emeralds were created by the Old Mobians, using that machine, that 'Image'... This is getting more and more confusing. And they worshiped Mechanix, even though he caused so much destruction as they struggled underground? They even use these Chaos Emeralds even after they exiled the Black Emerald?"

Sonic looked at the mosaic.

"The Black Emerald was made from the Black Rocks using that machine in those space ruins, and the Chaos Emeralds were made using that big Image, wherever it is. The Black was made in the First Great Age, the Chaos in the Second... And where did the Black Rocks come from, though, and what were the Chaos Emeralds made from? Is this really a pattern, or am I thinking too much...?"

.

From there, Sonic will exit the room by spindashing through the broken door at the right of the room. He'll enter another room full of scrolls. A large scroll will be a large map of Mobius. Aside from the contrast between ocean and earth, it features no geography. Thin lines mark territory between various points scattered across the continent. On closer inspection, one island off-shore has a dotted-line arrow that travels across the entire map. It is exactly the same size as the Floating Island. Another large scrolls features a Chaos Emerald in the center and describes how the air flows into it. Behind the Emerald is a painting of a landscape. On the left of it, it is nearly completely white and has no life. On the right, it is brown with various shrubs and bushes covering the scene. As Sonic covers the rest of the room, seven scrolls will rest, each depicting a city in a different style of architecture and on a different landscape. Sonic recognizes one as Ka'ralei, which remains underground. Another one has identical architecture to the main building in the Void, and he supposed it was 'Alastra'. Another showed a city on the cliff of a mountain which Sonic recognized as the _Hidden Palace_. Each had a Chaos Emerald of a different color superimposed in each city's heart, with colorful lines being whipped into it from the environment around the cities. At the end of the room was a hole in the wall.

Jumping through, Sonic will land on more rubble from the main building. He will need to descend small platforms and make his way to the roof of a large section of the Alastran building. The roof will have very sharp angles and curves that will finally give Sonic room to speed up. As he dashes down a long, brick walkway. Suddenly, white floods the area from behind him.

.

In the background, there are explosions constantly bursting and rapid fire of various projectile weapons flying back and forth like a melee of needles. Soaring overhead are many projectiles of varying type: energy, fire, bullets, even rocks. There is a constant din of battle cries, death cries, and the screaming of gunfire. Ahead of him is an echidna in Image battle armor with a long line of echidnas in lighter armor, holding long, slender weapons.

The apparent leader cries out, "Remember the essence of warfare. The core of most weapons are Black Rocks, which only amplify the energy they are initially given. In every situation, if you can terminate the connection of energy from the source to the Black Rock, the weapon is rendered useless. Remember this we-"

Suddenly, an echidna far down the line yells, "Migatchan robots! They're climbing the castle!"

The creatures from Ka'ralei's ruins then appear, rushing over the wall and attacking the echidnas.

"If this is real... I have to help them."

.

Sonic rushes forward and spindashes through a robot, but he passes right through it.

.

"Aah! Just like those Chaos Emeralds from before. So this isn't real. Why am I seeing this, though? This is in the past, isn't it?"

.

He sees the echidnas falling in battle before him, as well as the robots who are ripped apart and broken down. He walks through their battle and far down the walkway. He turns around, still seeing them fighting.

.

"How come it isn't going away, though? Usually, by now..."

.

He starts to run forward towards a tower in the distance. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop as the battle rages on all around him, he bursts onto a floor just after a cannonball rips through the wall.

.

"Damn it! We can't hold our meetings here anymore, it's too dangerous," the priestly echidna in robes from before said.

Sonic looked back at the wall he jumped through. "So is this building the only real thing here? Maybe, in the normal world, the hole was always there. Maybe, if that's the case, then that cannonball actually was what caused it..."

"Let's move now. I've been seeing both Migatchan and Fere'nau robots well within our perimeter," another said. Several other echidnas in robes agreed anxiously. They began to quickly walk towards a spiral staircase. Sonic follows them.

"We have reports that Ka'ralei's Black Rock supply has sufficiently decreased. They have been withdrawing their forces. It is very possible that they will fall within a few days. If we attack now, we can secure their capital before any other land does."

Leaving the spiral staircase, they walk down a long and tall hallway. A large army had appeared in the mountains and slowly made its way towards the building. They shuffled forward in hurried steps, but with some collection.

"Boy, come here," one calls.

A hedgehog in dirty clothes quickly steps forward.

"Yes, sir?"

Sonic was shocked. "What? I was wondering where the hedgehogs were... but, is he..."

"You, unlock the cellar doors before us. Tell the commander we need a platoon to protect it at all times."

The hedgehog hesitated. "But, he's out on the battlefield right now..."

The echidna smacked him across the face. "That is an order from me. What, are you a traitor? Our elders were once killed because of disloyal brats like you. I am the leader, now, and I will not let myself get killed so easily, do you understand?"

"Yes, that's so, but what if I die? He won't kn-"

The echidna punches him and then grabs him by the cuff. "You do not understand. I can kill you if I think you are a threat. Nobody cares about a slave like you. Do you regret it? Do you want to die?"

The hedgehog mumbles through a bruised mouth, "No, but..."

The echidna throws him back to the ground and walks on. "Then do it, coward."

Sonic yells, "Damn you!" and spindashes at the echidna, but passes through him. "Argh... that's right, this isn't real... not right now. So the other species were their servants back then. And they treated them like this..."

.

As Sonic moves to catch up, they fade away in a wave of white. Sonic is suddenly sent back to the Void. Realizing this, he continues on. As he moves on, however, the white flashes again, bringing him back. The white flashes again, and he's returned. It happens every couple of ten seconds. As he moves on, he avoids the pits that have since appeared while making his way to the cellar. Soon he reaches the cellar, which is locked in the past but blown open in the Void. Entering it, he remains in the past and is locked from behind.

.

At the bottom of a long stairwell is a very small and cramped arcade where the leaders stood. Their cloaks were tattered and they looked disheveled.

One was pacing, and spoke frantically, "That was why. That was why. All those Black Rocks, combined... with their Chaos Emerald... no wonder, no wonder."

"Since Ka'ralei used the Chaos Emerald in warfare, every other country has. Even our general betrayed us so that he could use it..." another said slowly, sitting against a pillar.

"I regret going into this war so whole-heartedly. If it was only just a battle determined by who had more Black Rocks, then there wouldn't be so much destruction. Did you hear? Anazze doesn't even exist anymore. Do you remember that mountain range?"

The others were silent, expecting him to continue.

"It doesn't exist anymore, either! It's completely the opposite now. It's a valley. A valley! That was one energy beam, too. Just one from their damn war machine! Whose was it? Does it even matter? We're going to die."

"Our own citizens are dying for us, and here we are, lying in this cellar..." the sitting one said.

One spoke strongly, but not in an assuring tone. "Dying for us? Ha. They're fighting for their own lives right now. If they're even alive."

Another standing echidna walked towards him, angrily. "Hey, we don't need this. We're all at the brink of sanity and you're only pushing it."

"Oh? You think this will end, you fool? It's only beginning. Right now the Chaos Emeralds are in the hand of their separate countries. But soon, as casualties rise, as morale drops, people will want to end it sooner. People will get upset with the current brass. They'll get greedy. They'll fight each other to get the ultimate power: the Chaos Emerald."

"It's not going to turn out like that..."

"Bullshit. Do you think that's it, huh? It won't even end in anarchy. Someone is going to take one Emerald, and then use it to get another. And another. Do you know how much power seven Chaos Emeralds will bring? The person himself will be physically transformed with all that energy. That's why our ancestors separated them to begin with!"

"No, nobody will..."

"And what's the use of Images? They're just copies. That person will understand. The Images were made from Mechanix's design. It wasn't sheer coincidence that by his design they absorb the radiation energy... the chaos energy. Mechanix was created for that very reason. All of the Images are imperfect copies compared to the Ultimate Being."

"What are you thinking!? Are you implying..."

"Yes. That person will awaken Mechanix from his seal, that god. That god of destruction which nearly made us extinct during the Earthen Age. With the power of those seven Chaos Emeralds which were created from compressing the chaos energy all around the world into seven points, he will know a power that will be beyond anything we can ever imagine. And that person will control him, and control the fate of this dying world..."

The other man stepped forward. The other echidnas looked at him. They were all surprised. He took another step. "You have it well thought out... as if you knew such a person."

The ranting echidna cackled, and turned away from them. He began walking towards Sonic. Sonic didn't move, too irritated to bother moving.

"If I have met such a person? If I was waiting here in safety as he creates a new world? If I was absolutely dedicated to him?"

He walked through Sonic and up the stairs. Sonic turned around and watched him climb.

"If that is so, what would it matter? Wouldn't it be done with? Wouldn't everything already be in motion? Wouldn't fate be unavoidable? Wouldn't all the cards already be on the table?"

Sonic was shocked. He heard those words before.

The other echidnas crowded into the staircase.

"What are you doing? It's not safe to go out there!"

He didn't listen. "We're doomed to die, but from our ashes, we will be reborn in the greatest age. If I met such a man, there would be no way for him to be wrong. I would follow him completely, even if he told me to kill my own leaders..."

"What!?" They yelled after him as he opened the door to the cellar and went outside. Sonic quickly came after and saw that everything had changed. The horizon, in all directions, was bright red, burning, and the smoke blackened out the vast remainder of the sky. Large machines, obscured by the smoke, fired powerful beams and swept scythes across the ground. There were sporadic gunshots, but Sonic could only see robots fighting robots. He then realized that unlike the time before, the cellar wasn't inside. The building had crumbled into separate pieces behind him. He looked back to the demented echidna.

"...as if I'm the only one. There were others, willing to give up their lives... who were found dead with the mark of Alastra, with the mark of Anazze, of Ka'ralei..."

"What are you saying!?" the brave one from before screamed as he raced behind him.

Sonic then noticed one of the gigantic creatures had been walking towards them. It had many long legs supporting a large body, which was far above the cover of the smoke. It quickly made its way towards them. The echidna didn't notice it although he was looking exactly in its direction. He turned around, with a smile.

"This isn't a matter of country versus country."

It stopped. A cannon dropped from a compartment in its body and aimed towards them.

"This isn't a matter of clan versus clan."

There was a very deep humming that rumbled across the sky and through the ground. All of the echidnas began to shake from it and slowly backed towards the cellar.

"This isn't a matter of echidna versus every other species."

The cannon glowed with rays of light bursting from the cannon. Sonic was stunned by its size, but was slightly assured that it wasn't real to him. He looked back at the echidnas, though. He didn't want to see them die, despite their cowardice. He took a deep breath. Did this all really happen?

"This is beyond our simple mortality. This is beyond our time."

The cannon fired, and the blast quickly consumed the entire area in white. Sonic was surprised, but he knew he'd return back to his own time... even if he didn't know where he was. However, the white continued to stay. He turned around. The roar of the blast was long gone, but he still heard gunshots. He turned again and saw the shadow of a metal figure. The white started to fade and Sonic saw a burning inferno in front of him. The machine's parts were scattered far across the field. The blast had come from it exploding. He looked around and saw all of the echidnas thrown across the ground from the shock wave, but they were still alive. He turned to the metal figure, but it remained in shadow from the fire ahead.

"Sonic the hedgehog," a voice spoke.

Sonic jumped. He was surprised, but he felt he imagined his name. He kept on looking at the metal figure, the savior of those echidnas. However, it turned around. Sonic felt like it was looking right at him, but of course this is the past. But why...

"I have found you," the voice said.

Sonic looked back. Was that servant from before named Sonic, or...

The figure walked towards Sonic. Sonic backed up, but it moved with a definite pace. Sonic stopped and looked at it straight in its shadow-covered face. The light from the fire was so bright that it blinded him from seeing the details of this person. The figure stopped right before Sonic.

"Doctor Robotnik would like to see you."

Sonic finally recognized the figure. Just as he did, white floods past him. The figure did not disappear, however. Even as Sonic finds himself back in the Void, it stands before him.

"You have spent enough time in the past. Come, now, to the future."

The figure wisped away suddenly like it was made out of mist. They fly far away and as Sonic follows it with his eyes, he notices where it's going.

"What!"

A giant pitch-black vortex had appeared, ripping the buildings and structures apart as they swirl into its invisible center. Still surprised at just having noticed it, the building he stands on starts to rumble. His feet slowly slide as well. He puts his weight on his feet and gets composed. His destination is set.

.

In the final section of Void, Sonic will need to race through the remaining ruins as they fall apart while avoiding falling pillars and roofs that can crush him. The streamers in the background flash by faster than ever towards the vortex. The asteroid-like structures from Act 2 also fly towards it, and Sonic will need to take advantage of their gravity to stabilize himself as everything rushes towards the same point. He'll need to move even faster as bits collide and break, threatening to crush him at every turn. As he gets closer, the objects move faster. Right at the end, all he can do is jump to avoid being ripped up with the other scraps.

.

**Fallen World** [Act 1] (4/22)

As soon as Sonic enters the vortex, he appears in the sky flying at high speeds. The clouds are thick and very dark. He starts falling through them until he reaches a sloped hill. He hits the ground running and dashes down the hillside. The ground under him is black and covered with ash. The clouds remain overcast over the whole of his view.

He is apparently on a mountain that stands high above the surrounding land. Everywhere is dark and grayed out. There is no light. Sonic cannot see anything but rocks; there are no cities, no oceans, no vegetation.

The first quarter of the level will consist of descending the mountain. There are spires that jut out of the hills that Sonic can climb or avoid as he runs down. The geography of the ground is very irregular and angular. Some hills may burst upward and suddenly lose angle while others may just drop entirely.

As the hill slowly rolls toward the plains, there will be tunnels Sonic can enter that parallel the above-ground path. There's also floating platforms which Sonic can run and jump across if the bottom two paths are too slow. The level favors speed and with proper timing in jumping Sonic can move without stopping. Spires will also appear that will block Sonic's path unless he can jump over them or find a tunnel below them.

After covering the entire plain, Sonic will be at the foothill of another mountain range (specifically the one he saw at the beginning). There he'll meet a small, orb-shaped robot that has a klaxon in the glass dome that makes its lower half. As soon as it gets close, its alarm will go off and it will zip back and forth rapidly.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

Hitting the small robot once will free the power ring that was inside of it. However, nearby robots get alerted and fly onto the hill to confront Sonic. Sonic will recognize them immediately. They will all attack at once. There are ten Egg Robos, three Egg S-Robos, and four Egg A-Robos. After defeating them, an Egg T-Robo will roll in.

The Egg T-Robo is a large Egg Robo whose arms and legs fold over into a large shell. Its hands hold two large cannons and can freely angle them. The jet-pack remains uncovered.

- Proceeded by a five-second charge-up, it will fire its cannons in rapid, alternating succession. The beam is small enough that Sonic can jump or roll under it, but he will need to move fast to avoid every beam fired.

- Each cannon can also lock-on Sonic separately, such that when one is done firing, the other will trail Sonic with its cross-hair. Both attacks will last for 10 beams.

- It can also hover into the air using its jet-pack and will try to crush Sonic. By feinting, Sonic can race behind it.

The jet-pack is its only weakness and takes eight hits before it blows up and destroys the Egg T-Robo. Sonic can at most land three hits before the T-Robo spins around and knocks Sonic away.

.

[Act 2]

Sonic will run down the foothill and find a cavern that leads through the mountain. As he enters, he notices the walls are braced with a strange metal and is lit by dim flames. Moving further in, he will come across pits and highly angular rock formations. Some areas will be so narrow that he can only slide through them as a spinball. As he makes his way through, various robots will appear, all with power rings as sources. He will eventually come to the wet part of the cavern, where deep, purple pools will slow him down if he chooses to enter them. They all lead to a stream which Sonic can jump over using the cave's platforms. Halfway through, the stream will spill out into a deep lake and Sonic will fly out.

The sky has changed color, being lit up by a constant bright source far in the distance. The lake is polluted and filled with more robots. The water is dangerous to touch and Sonic can only jump over it using the small floating islands native to the area. As he moves on, he'll come across very tall and thick burnt trees which rise from the mire, although most are fallen and broken. Their branches curve wildly, sometimes into loop-de-loops that Sonic can run across. Regaining his speed, he will quickly find himself at the shore of the lake. There he is confronted by another robot.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

The robot is a tall biped with light armor on, wielding a sword and shield.

- It has a rapid succession of horizontal slices that Sonic will need to judge where to jump and where to roll.

- It also has a vertical slice that Sonic can avoid if he stays far enough away.

- Finally, with a few seconds of pulling back its sword, it will lock-on Sonic's position and stab.

- The robot will also thrust with its shield if Sonic is too close. It won't hurt him, but he'll be sent far back.

The robot can only be damaged during and immediately after an attack. After eight hits, its armor will break.

.

It will then throw away its shield and wield the sword with both hands.

- Its horizontal slice is replaced with a single, wide cut that will reach across the entire battlefield.

- Its vertical slice is then made rapid: its first downward slice is followed by an upward slice, then a slight charge-up period before it leaps in the air and lands a vertical slice into the ground. This charge-up period is when it calculates where Sonic is, so Sonic will need to dash under the robot if he left no room for himself to run.

- Its stabbing attack is also much more rapid, although it loses its targeting ability for an effective wall of piercing stabs.

- It will also have an attack where it cuts the sword upward from the ground so that a wave of flaming dirt is sent towards Sonic. He may make this attack several times, as well.

Sonic can land a hit at any time, and eight will finish it.

.

[Act 3]

Moving on, Sonic will immediately reach a city. It is abandoned and highly dilapidated. It is completely different from Grand City, but it also has no resemblance to any Old Mobian city. The architecture is much more fluid and curvy. Buildings are attached to each other by bridges and tunnels. Sonic will quickly find himself on the roofs of these buildings, leaping across gaps and running down the collapsing bridges. Due to the curvy nature of the buildings, Sonic can quickly find himself running up walls and even on the underside of bridges and tunnels. Loops, half-loops, and ramps will have him flying at high speeds, however even more robots are about which will create barricades against him. He will also enter some buildings for brief amounts of time which are highly compact and require quick reactions to maintain speed. The city as a whole shows signs of being once very beautiful, however everything is in ruins. Due to this factor, Sonic may find areas collapsing around him, so he needs to be quick.

At the end, Sonic will have reached the top of a toppled skyscraper. In the far distance, he can see that the source of the light comes from the top of a very tall mountain which towers above the clouds. The clouds even spiral around it menacingly, as if it wasn't even from this world. Surrounding it are the ashen fields from before, but glowing dimly with red scars that slice through the land. Just as Sonic fully takes the sight in, a robot will rocket into sight and attack.

.

[Act 3 Boss]

The battlefield is the angled top of the skyscraper, which basically consists of a sawtooth (/|/|/|) shape. The robot hovers above and is fully armored. Its shape is highly mechanical, and the top is a parabolic dome attached to a glass ring. The ring has a pulsing light which rotates within it, and the light changes color depending on the robot's action.

- When blue, the robot will open a compartment and shoot a large ball which will explode and scatter five smaller balls onto the battlefield which Sonic must avoid as they bounce around. After five seconds, they will all explode.

- When green, it drops several electric orbs which will quickly rush to the left (towards Sonic). They trace the outline of the battlefield, so Sonic must be ready to jump several times.

- When yellow, it will pull out four spike-balls connected by chains to its body. The first two will be swung towards where Sonic is. After hitting the ground, they will be dragged backwards until they're underneath the robot, then they will be pulled back. The other two will be simply launched at where Sonic is and then immediately returned to the robot's body.

- When red, the parabolic dome will shoot up, revealing its glass core. It will begin to charge up an attack, allowing Sonic a chance to damage it. Due to the sawtooth shape of the battlefield, he will have to spindash or collect enough speed and jump in order to get enough height to reach the hovering robot.

- After charging for ten seconds, it will fire eight beams from its core in all eight directions (up, up-left, left, down-left, etc.), and then rotate the beams 45 degrees clockwise. In order to remain unhurt, Sonic will need to move slowly up the angled ground in phase with the rotation.

After eight hits, the robot will go down in flames.

.

[Act 4]

Sonic will then leap off of the skyscraper and find himself running down a broken aqueduct-like structure (actually a walkway). After shortly reaching ground level again, he will enter the burning fields that surround the towering mountain. The ash has not yet settled, however everything is still charred. Ponds, forests, and even buildings can be seen, although they are all in a process of destruction. Nearly everything still glows from embers and small fires. It will be similar in design to Act 1, however the land is much more torn up, with much more tunnels, floating platforms, and irregular geography. There are also large craters that Sonic can gain speed in from the curves, and areas that burn with a white ember which hurt Sonic if he touches it. Robots will also be more present, which is partly a boon due to the rings they provide.

Halfway through, Sonic will come to a very large canyon that he will have noticed earlier, as it stretches far in a wide swath in front of the gigantic mountain. The mountain's base itself will begin to be visible, too. The valley is much too wide for Sonic to leap over, so he must descend the chasm using the ubiquitous floating platforms and the crags in the canyon's walls. The bottom is nearly entirely covered in white-hot fires, with lava even erupting in some areas. Avoiding the eruptions which block his path, Sonic must check his speed in order to cross the deadly bottom. He'll then climb the other wall for a short while before a robot suddenly attacks from the air.

.

[Act 4 Boss]

The robot has several rockets which keeps it stabilized in the air and also two extendable arms with large, sharp teeth gears on their ends.

- The robot will first strike at Sonic with its lower arm and by jumping on it, Sonic will gain a platform.

- The robot will then thrust its second arm above him and begin to move up the canyon wall.

Directly facing Sonic on the main body of the robot is a mechanical eye covered by a transparent shield. In both arms is a hole near the wall which Sonic can fall through (the lower arm) or wall-jump through (the upper) if he needs to.

- The robot will start its attacks by showering small laser bullets in a line from its main body down the upper arm. With proper timing, Sonic can run through the gap.

- As the robot accrues more hits, it will have the laser bullets fire in the opposite direction as well. After doing this, it will then fire a collection of the tiny laser cannons around Sonic's position so that he will have to run to escape the blasts. Every "hit" from a collection of these laser bullets will damage that arm. There is usually three "hits" per attack round.

- Another attack involves both arms, where several metal paddles or shot out of the arms at varying heights. There is a difference in height between two paddles in the same pair, such that Sonic can jump or roll through the gap. The paddles will move towards the canyon wall, and if Sonic does not move fast enough, he will fall through the arm's hole (or have to wall-jump on to the upper arm). The paddles will be re-shot so that Sonic has about a dozen hurdles before the attack stops.

- There are also two laser cannons mounted on a ring around the eye which will begin revolving before firing. Due to the lasers revolving, Sonic will not avoid the attack if he stays between the upper and lower arms.

If the lower arm is hit about nine times, it will slowly pull out of the canyon wall until the gear is completely removed. Then the entire body will rotate around the upper arm, and the lower arm will then pierce the canyon wall and function as the new upper arm. To avoid this, Sonic needs to get on the old upper arm before he falls.

- If Sonic is on the upper arm before this happens, the robot will launch three slow homing missiles at Sonic from its backside. If Sonic avoids them, they will hit the upper arm and cause damage.

Similarly, if the upper arm is hit about nine times, it will pull out of the canyon wall until the gear is removed, then whip around the lower arm, making the old lower arm the new upper. Although Sonic can just stand still and stay alive, if he stays too long, a paddle will push him into the arm's hole, forcing him to fall.

When one arm receives about twenty-seven hits in total, it will blow apart. The remaining arm will function as a lower arm and the paddle and laser shower attack will end. However, the homing missile attack will remain. The rotating laser attack will also remain, but because of its short duration, Sonic can simply wall-jump off the canyon walls to avoid it. Once the second arm receives twenty-seven hits, the robot will have reached the top of the canyon. Sonic then has a few seconds to jump onto the ground before the arm blows up.

The robot then floats above Sonic with its eye facing downwards. It will float left to right and keep its homing missile attack, as well as its laser attack (Sonic must then run to one side to avoid it).

- Additionally, it will open its shield, causing the eye to fall out. However, it is connected by a steel cord and will be swung back and forth like from the _Green Hill Zone_ boss battle in _Sonic 1_. Sonic will only be damaged if he is standing as it swings at him.

As a spinball in any form he can damage it. Eight hits will cause a chain reaction from the eye to the main robot, causing it to burst apart.

.

**The Apex** [Act 1] (4/23)

Sonic finally reaches the great mountain. As he climbs, the angle will become steeper and steeper. Only a few, weak robots will harass him as he makes his ascent. At first he can run, but soon he can only jump in order to make it up. After breaking back above the clouds which spiral violently around the mountain, the slope will essentially be a cliff. Although there may be chasms that are flatter, for the most part Sonic will be needing to wall jump off floating rocks in order to reach a ledge. After a while, Sonic will have to wall jump several times in order to even make it to one ledge. However, at this point, he has less than ten ledges to climb before he reaches the summit.

The summit is brightened by the light source Sonic noticed earlier. He can hardly see it through the dense clouds, however. The summit's ground is completely flat, as if it was made artificially. In a short walk, Sonic will pass ruins that are both ancient and advanced, with the same architecture as from the city. Just as the ruins begin to form a coherent structure, they disappear. The ground is scathed, but in a manner that is subtly different from before. In the middle of the peak, Sonic will see the metal figure from the Void standing before him.

.

"Hello, Sonic."

Sonic looked back at him. He could see him clearly now. His body was very sleek, although covered in spikes. His eyes were completely dark except for the glowing blue iris. His body flowed like fire, even by simply standing. He held a very powerful presence. However, Sonic was not intimidated. He stared at him with ferocity.

"You remained in the Special Zone for too long, however now you can see Robotnik's grand design," he said.

"When did you gain the ability to talk? Mechanix," Sonic responded coolly.

"With all seven of the Chaos Emeralds, all of my abilities are unlocked. That was how I was designed," he answered plainly.

Sonic did not budge. "This is where the Black Emerald landed, wasn't it? It's where the portal led to... Robotnik already has it, doesn't he?"

"Yes."

There was a moment of silence. Sonic then said, "Back then you got the Chaos Emeralds, too. During the Second Great Age."

Mechanix moved his head. "You saw something in the Special Zone."

"How many people did you kill?" Sonic glared at Mechanix's cold eyes.

"I am not allowed to remember as Doctor Robotnik ordered."

Sonic took a step forward. "Shut up. How many people did you kill? Tell me. You can remember."

"I am not-"

Sonic yelled, "I don't care what Robotnik ordered! You're just a weapon. I'm sick of you and Robotnik running away. I'm sick of people dying. I'm sick of your meaningless killing."

Mechanix did not respond.

Sonic put his hand to his head and laughed. "Hahaha. I pummeled you how many times? Wasn't it four? You aren't even supposed to be alive. In fact, you have a very annoying tendency of not being dead. Haha."

Sonic looked at Mechanix with a smile. "I've followed you into space, across reality, to fight on an entire's world fucking grave?! I'm sick of this shit. I'll beat you down every time you revive. Does it matter how many times it'll be? You can't stop me. I'm invincible."

Mechanix moved his head again. "Sonic, even if you wish to destroy me, Doctor Robotnik's orders are in priority. You will die before I am destroyed."

"You can think for yourself, can't you? You can speak for yourself, at least. Why are you following him? He's nothing but a murderer," Sonic asked. He remembers all of Robotnik's Apocalypses. "He's a mass murderer."

"He revived me from my seal. I am programmed to follow whoever awakens me. That was how I was designed."

Sonic walked around Mechanix. "That's it, then. That's all you are."

He looked away. He was tense, but not angry. He looked into the clouds.

"Where are we?"

Mechanix responded, "This is an unnamed planet that rests in a very far galaxy from Mobius. It was home to tribal creatures which engaged in wars often, until the Black Emerald had landed. They built their civilization around it and were quickly advancing."

Sonic didn't move, in shock. Another planet?

"They would reach the technological and social status of Mobius' civilization within a century."

He looked at the dark clouds swirling before him. He remembered how everything was burnt to ash. He remembered how close to this mountain, embers were still burning...

"As commanded by Doctor Robotnik, the entire planet was to be destroyed."

Sonic quickly turned. "Did you do all of that?"

"Doctor Robotnik sent you here so that you may see his grand design."

Sonic then noticed the source of light behind Mechanix, hovering deep in the clouds. It was moving closer the entire time. The giant ball of light had suddenly entered the spinning clouds, and they moved even more erratically and violently. They swirled and slowly whisked away, and a shape began to emerge from the clouds. It was bathed in lights of varying colors, blinding Sonic as the cloud cover no longer obscured them. The clouds rolled off of it, and Sonic almost thought that it was a giant cloud itself. As the clouds uncovered its body, Sonic was continually shocked at how large it was getting. It would not stop increasing in size. Sonic could already not see the entire thing, as it was larger than his eyes could see, even from this distance miles away. As he got used to the brightness, he saw how complex it was. It had thousands of turrets, as small as a person to ones attached to the side that were a mile wide. It had tens of thousands of windows and a countless number of floors. There were several massive wings, and even larger engines that expelled jets of flame miles thick. It consumed the sky with its size, and the stars disappeared under its light.

"With the Black Emerald, he was finally able to power all systems. This battleship, the Eraser Egg, was tested here for its ability to destroy a world."

Sonic saw on the hull of the impossible ship an emblem of Robotnik's face.

"It succeeded."

Sonic then realized that the canyon he crossed earlier had the same diameter as one of the cannons on the ship. It wasn't the largest one. He remembered how the land was split and turned up on itself. He remembered how the skyscraper was toppled. He remembered how even the underground water was polluted. Most of all, he remembered how everything, every single thing that he saw, was completely charred.

Mechanix stepped forward. "Sonic, having you see this was Doctor Robotnik's order. Now that it is complete, his existing order remains to be completed. You must die."

Sonic could not respond.

.

[Act 1 Boss : MECHANIX GRANDMASTER]

On top of the mountain as night battles against the light given from the Eraser Egg, as dark clouds roil and turn, their flows disturbed by its gigantic mass, the battle takes place.

- Mechanix will start out with a speed so high that it essentially is teleporting. However, as he takes damage he will slow down.

- His slice attack leads to a 20-slash combo that will give Sonic only a few seconds to recover his rings.

- He will attack bare-handed much more often, trying to hit Sonic and get him into a dangerous combo.

- His dash is instantaneous, so Sonic must estimate the proper time beforehand to evade.

- He can hover infinitely, now.

- He can fire his charged laser beam multiple times.

- His rapid-fire laser cannon can fire twice as fast.

- If he continually charges his beam, it will end up being so large that Sonic cannot avoid it. To stop it, he has to attack Mechanix while he charges (he'll never be too high in the air for this).

- He can hover in the air and fire lasers from left to right, which Sonic must stop between to stay unhurt.

- He can also fire a plasma ball that bounces off the ground if it doesn't hit Sonic. He will then whack it to send it at Sonic again with a faster speed. After a few whacks, it will just fly away.

- He also has a temporary impenetrable white shield that he can spread around himself, which he will often do (but not always).

After five hits, his movements will stop appearing to be instantaneous and will be around four times Sonic's speed. After five more, Mechanix will slow to three times Sonic's speed. After five more, two times. Only after ten more hits will Mechanix be only slightly faster than Sonic. Mechanix will take thirty hits in total before falling.

.

After defeating Mechanix, Sonic drops to his knees, exhausted. He gasps for breath. He looks up at the Eraser Egg, which is starting to move again. That gigantic warship was powered by the Black Emerald. That warship burnt down an entire planet. He defeated Mechanix with all the Chaos Emeralds, so maybe it won't be as overwhelming as it seems like.

Sonic then remembered the images he saw of Old Mobius when the echidnas went onto the surface for the first time after the first Great Age. It was completely white, scathed of any life, just like here. After the event that caused the entire world to be like that, the Black Emerald was exiled here. The power of that Emerald is beyond reckoning. It is only an amplifier of energy, but how many times does it amplify that energy?

Suddenly, a shadow loomed immediately before him. He gasped and jumped backwards onto his feet. Mechanix stood again, without any signs of damage.

"What?! I just defeated you! You shouldn't be standing!"

"You must die."

Mechanix walked forward and charged up his laser cannon. Sonic prepared himself, but then noticed that Mechanix's chest was slightly open. The Chaos Emeralds within glowed. He looked back at him fiercely, when a voice rang out from Mechanix.

"All preparations are complete. Mechanix, return to the Eraser Egg immediately, we are going to Mobius. We will leave through the portal in fifteen minutes, so hurry up!"

Mechanix had paused to listen, and in that time Sonic spindashed. As soon as the call was finished, he crashed right into his chest, forcing it open. The Chaos Emeralds spilled out and Mechanix skidded across the ground. He quickly grabbed them, and in an instant transformed into Super Sonic. He dashed to where Mechanix was and beat him down. Mechanix used his white shield, deflecting him, and when the shield disappeared he had already made it to the Chaos Emeralds.

They span around him and re-entered his chest. Energy burst from him and he glowed for a few seconds.

"I can repair myself, Sonic. You cannot win."

Sonic heard a large boom from behind him and quickly whipped around to see the air bending in front of the Eraser Egg's nose. It turned in a spiral and slowly grew larger.

"That must be the portal. I don't have time for this!"

He rams into Mechanix and flies off towards the battleship. This is Sonic's final chance to stop Robotnik!


	6. Sonic Ballistic, Part 5

Part 5

**Eraser Egg** [Act 1] (5/24)

Super Sonic will be flying through the sky at high speeds. There is a fifteen minute counter and he must not waste too much time. He will constantly move forward, but he can move up and down, left and right, and anywhere in between. After a short period, the Eraser Egg will begin firing at him. He will need to dodge the lasers and missiles which will increase in number as he gets closer. If he gets hit, he will be knocked back and slowed down. Halfway through the level, he'll reach the giant battleship's underside. He will come across many cannons of varying sizes. The small ones he can just break through, but larger ones he'll need to fly around. Various mechanical parts will also jut out of its body, forcing Sonic to react quickly. When there is a smooth stretch, flying robots will released to attack Sonic. These consist of the small robots from the Egg Tempest and Egg S-Robos. Sonic can just dash through them to destroy them, but their attacks will slow him down. After several stretches of increasing difficulty, Sonic will then change his movement and dash up the side of ship. He will be moving through the trenches and avoiding the various fire and robots that will attack him on the way up. As he reaches the top, he will be knocked into by Mechanix.

.

[Act 1 Boss : MECHANIX GRANDMASTER]

Super Sonic will be rushing to the left over the very complex top of the Egg Eraser. As cannons fire him and as he dodges the many structures that rush toward him, Mechanix will follow and attack him simultaneously. He will try to close-in and slice at Sonic, but with his speed he can avoid it easily.

- He will fire his charged laser beam and his rapid-fire cannon much more often than before to compensate for the difference.

Being invincible and much faster, Super Sonic makes quick work of him. If he can land five hits, Mechanix will activate his white shield and withdraw for a moment. After 30 hits in total, Mechanix is beaten.

After winning, Mechanix will stop hovering and crash into the ship, leaving Sonic to fly ahead. However, he'll run out of power and fall as well.

.

[Act 2]

Hitting the ground running, Sonic will begin the second act. The fifteen minutes will still be counting down. Sonic will have to time his jumps carefully to keep his speed high, looking for an opening into the warship. Cannons and robots will block his way and he won't be able to simply run through them to move on. A trick to avoid some of the larger cannons is to stay under their line of fire as they cannot aim down. The many robots that will come to attack Sonic can also be destroyed by cannon fire. The surface of the ship will also have open electric conduits and pipes which burst out steam, presenting more danger on his race. As the top of the Eraser Egg at this area was not meant to be traveled around, Sonic will not find a single path that will lead him anywhere, but multiple routes around the high variety of structures that block his way. Finally, Sonic will come across a giant cannon that he cannot run under or through. It has an incomplete metal support filled with platforms and long vertical tubes that Sonic can jump and wall jump up. After a long way through that narrow area, he'll be underneath the cannon. There are small metal catwalk platforms hanging underneath it that Sonic must carefully jump across. The last one allows Sonic to enter inside the large cannon. Down its empty interior, he'll come to the firing room.

The room is very large, the walls dark from being so far out of sight. Sonic stands on a long flat catwalk that spans the entire room, from the muzzle to the giant lens that the energy for the cannon blast comes from. Walking halfway down the room, a voice will halt Sonic.

.

"Sonic the hedgehog! Stop where you are."

A robot drops from the ceiling and lands before Sonic. He resembles an echidna, except is very muscular and shorter. He is very steampunk in design, mostly consisting of pipes and gears.

"I am Scrap, the first created of Mechanix's Children. My sole purpose..."

He points at Sonic, a whirring sound heard in his joints.

"...is to destroy you, Sonic!"

Sonic stood his ground. "Child, huh? Well then, kid, I defeated your father not too long ago. You're no match for me."

Scrap took a step back, and sputtered, "You couldn't have! He's the Ultimate Being! You're just using your lying tricks. Doctor Robotnik told us about you. He said you live in a world of lies and want to turn this world into lies, too! You're evil!"

"You're just one of his robot henchmen, don't speak as if you have a will. What kind of trick is this?"

Scrap got flustered and shouted, "No! I was roboticized by Doctor Robotnik in the great Image of our father, Mechanix. I was the first! I am not like the other robots, I don't need a power source."

Sonic paused.

"We live off the world around us, like living beings. We live in the real world, not the world of lies like you and your kind!"

Sonic quickly made sense of the situation. "So even Robotnik is using the design of Mechanix..."

"That's enough!" Scrap blew steam out of his shoulders and hips. "I'm going to be the greatest son of Mechanix and finish his task for him. I'm going to show that I am an Ultimate Being too!"

.

[Act 2 Boss : SCRAP]

Scrap will mainly attack in close-range fighting.

- He will throw high punches and kicks that Sonic can duck under,

- or low punches and kicks that Sonic can jump over.

He moves slow enough that Sonic won't get hit while dodging. If Sonic tries to attack then, Scrap will guard, causing Sonic to bounce off. If Sonic tries to escape, Scrap will quickly chase him. He will jump shortly after Sonic jumps and attack him in mid-air if they collide. However, since he jumps after Sonic, Sonic has a chance to dash beneath him as he's still falling.

- If Sonic is far enough away, Scrap will fire about thirty thin plasma bolts that will arc over the arena and fall over Sonic like rain. As Sonic moves between the falling bolts, Scrap will run up to attack when they have all landed.

Sonic can attack Scrap after successfully dodging five close-range attacks. Eight hits will defeat him.

.

Scrap collapses to the ground. "I'm just a robot, after all..."

"Just let go, you'll be released from the roboticization soon," Sonic consoled.

Scrap didn't look at Sonic. "The first civilization of this world... all the species... the echidnas, the hedgehogs, the foxes... they all lived in tribes, in clans, and they fought endlessly. They lived each day in blood, killing each other over food and entering their territory... Then they found a source of power that would allow them all to survive, the Black Rocks, hidden in the ground..."

Sonic stepped forward. "What are you talking about? The first civilization?"

"Come closer, Sonic... let me try... one last... time..." Scrap muttered, then suddenly glowed brightly.

Sonic quickly jumped away as Scrap exploded violently, shrapnel flying wildly across the giant room. He quickly looked at the ball of flame and smoke before him. He rushed back, into the smoke and standing in the incredible heat, he looked at the shadow beneath the inferno. What was left of Scrap were broken, cracked, and in multiple pieces. Sonic quickly stepped out of the flames and froze. He couldn't stop looking at the fire.

"Robotnik designed Scrap to explode... he had no intention of letting him being deroboticized... he made it so he'd die so violently..."

He gripped his hands tightly.

"I can't allow him to get away."

Sonic looked to an hallway in the distance and ran towards it at full speed.

.

[Act 3]

The hallway will curve down and then make a wide spiral (like in _Lava Reef Zone _from_ Sonic & Knuckles_) around a central column. As he runs down, the ship will shake and Robotnik will announce that they are now entering the portal. After ten turns, Sonic will find himself dashing down a long corridor with small robot resistance. The corridors are brightly lit up by streaks of fluorescent lighting, with smooth steel walls marked by small division gaps that crack across it like lightning. Small glowing consoles and monitors rush by in a blur of light, as well as windows which peer out into space as stars fly by.

At the end of the corridor, Sonic will be sent reeling down twisting paths that will make him roll into a spin ball and hurtle through giant storage rooms. He will be running up walls, across ceilings, through loops, corkscrews, jumping on platforms that span large chasms within the ship, wall jumping up vertical shafts, and in general moving at a very fast pace. All the robots he has ran into before in his adventures will return, including all the Egg Robos (any Egg T-Robos he runs into can be avoided, of course). He will also come across many hazards: arcing electricity, burning steam, uncovered energy, spikes, and moving machinery that can squish him. Many objects, such as doors, will block his path and he'll need to spindash through them. Some areas will be specifically designed as traps for Sonic, such as a room he'll fall into that has closing walls, or pipes which burst near him. Overall, the design is very sleek and smooth, although there may be a large amount of heavy machinery with pipes and gears visible. At the end, Sonic will enter an elevator that moves diagonally to the bottom-left, and he'll meet another enemy.

.

"Sonic the hedgehog, your rampage ends here."

A tall robot with a thick torso stood before him. He was very organic and fluid in design, but small and short. He has a black visor covering his eyes, and clawed hands.

"I am Death, the second created of Mechanix's Children. My only charged task is to kill you."

Sonic looked at the elevator walls, and tries breaking through the windows, but they are too sturdy.

"Damn it..."

"You cannot escape me, hedgehog. You will die in this elevator."

Sonic backed away. "I'm not worried about my death. If you're like Scrap, you'll self-destruct and die when I defeat you."

"Yes, that is true. Unlike your people of lies, we understand the finiteness of being. We all may strive to be like our father, the Ultimate Being Mechanix, but we know we will never achieve eternal life and grace as he did."

Sonic spat, "What's with that?! You fools are just having Robotnik spew that nonsense into your empty robotic skulls. I've defeated Mechanix several times over, he's weak."

"But have you killed him?"

Sonic stopped. It was true, every time he fought Mechanix he never completely destroyed him. When Mechanix stopped fighting, so did he. He held back...

"In the pursuit of my father, I will kill you and achieve my small purpose, just as Mechanix seeks his great goal."

Death whips up his arm and begins firing.

.

[Act 3 Boss : DEATH]

Death is much faster than Scrap and he has shorter breaks between attacks. He will start out far away and unload a gun from his arm.

- He'll then send wave after wave of spread shots which Sonic will need to jump through or roll under.

- He'll also have a very quick laser which will target Sonic and fire three rapid, thin energy blasts.

- He will also throw small energy grenades at Sonic which will have an explosion twice their radii.

If Sonic can dodge these attacks and run towards Death, he can land a hit. Four hits will change his attack pattern. He will then charge Sonic and will not back off.

- He will continually slash at him and follow him into the air.

- Scrap will also have a dashing attack that will close the distance in an instant.

The key to victory is to counterattack when Sonic sees a chance. Like Scrap, he will jump after Sonic does, so if Sonic is cornered he can jump and then quickly spindash under him and attack him from behind. Four more hits will defeat him.

.

"I could never even approach a margin of Mechanix's great glory. I deserve this death..."

Sonic felt pity and suspicion. But he did not want to see anyone die. "No, you don't need to die. I only defeated you in battle, that's all! Come on, come on," Sonic urged, walking towards Death. "Be like your father and get up again. You don't need to die!"

"The second civilization of this world..."

"What? Wait, again? This again?!" Sonic sputtered as he shook him by his shoulders.

"...using the Black Rocks, they found technology and prosperity. All the people of the world lived together, in one metropolis that spanned a continent. Peace had restored the world. Yet they sought more power, greedy for advancement. They created the Black Emerald. They were all corrupted by its potential, and they brought true chaos to the world. They killed off each other and fled from their own world..."

"Why did Robotnik program you to know this? He's still toying with me, thinking I'm no threat, huh. Damn it!"

"Sonic... I will kill you here..."

Bits of his smooth shell snap off, revealing a dense net of wires. They pop and fizz briefly before electricity starts to arc onto the metal wall and floor. The arcs increase in frequency and the light inside flickers. Sonic feels a rush of energy start to zap his legs and he reflexively hops. The light flickers faster and the arcs only connect back to Death's body. Death continues to stare at him.

"Robotnik programmed you to do this, too. To die like this. He'll kill just to screw with me. Damn him-"

A rush of electricity comes up through the ground, causing Sonic's muscles to spasm and make him jump into the elevator wall. The light stops flickering and becomes very bright, then pops. Several compartments in the elevator burst out from fire. Smoke quickly builds inside. Sonic can't speak, being electrocuted by the metal on the wall and floor. Death continues to stare at him, although he stopped moving. The brakes start to grind, screaming, into the wheels. Sonic falls to the floor, his breath staggering on the smoke as his limbs flail, attached to the metal like they were glued. An explosion rips through the side of the elevator, taking out a large chunk of its underside as well. The brakes are no longer heard and the elevator picks up speed. Sonic stops jerking, however, and finally catches his breath. His body is completely numb, but he slowly crawls to his feet. Electricity no longer burst out of Death's body. Sonic tries to walk against the rushing air and his unresponsive legs, but he stumbles back onto the floor.

"Not again... I won't let another person die..."

Sonic moves knee over knee towards the lifeless robot.

"Even if you're fully roboticized... I can't be like Robotnik..."

He plants his foot.

"I can't just kill like Robotnik..."

He plants his other foot and slowly walks towards Death. The elevator, having completely lost control, rockets down the shaft. Lights within it blur by in long streaks of blue and white. Sonic finally regains feeling in his limbs, and although shaky, he grabs onto the robot. He hoists him over his shoulder, but Death is limp.

"I'm tired of all of these deaths..."

He slowly backs off, carrying Death, and turns. He jumps when he sees dozens of Egg S-Robos chasing the elevator. As they close in, they begin firing. Sonic looks at them, grimaces, and jumps off the car.

.

[Act 4]

Sonic will be unable to spindash and he will also not roll into a spinball when he jumps as he carries Death. He will therefore be unable to attack. Sonic will start out running down the shaft, the elevator car rolling out of view. The approaching Egg S-Robos will fire lasers and missiles which Sonic will need to avoid. As he runs, more S-Robos will come and fire. After about thirty seconds, though, the car will finally collide with the bottom of the shaft. Sonic will quickly reach the same point and jump through the burning hole. The car breaks through several layers of metal and pipework in between. Sonic will need to hop over the sharp edges from the pipes as well as arcing electricity and blowing steam. He'll finally see a catwalk which he can jump up to. There, he'll lay Death down and move on.

The next section of the act will be concentrated in the ventilation of the ship. Sonic will run and jump through extremely narrow metal shafts and move precariously over giant fans. Steam will burst and rocket him in their respective directions, and he'll need to move carefully both with the incredible wind moving against and behind him. Next, he will crash into the hydraulics area. The machinery will be similar to that found in the ventilation area, except concerning water. It will soon lead into large rooms full of dangerous thrusting and rotating parts which threaten to crush and burn Sonic alive. He'll need to run through colliding pistons and jump across spinning gears, all while avoiding robots that are sent after him. Connecting the various areas are smaller maintenance shafts which consist of ugly iron plating covered with rivets barely covering pipework, dimly lit by red lights. The largest area will surround the engine. Sonic will be surrounded by every hazard he has yet encountered and in close proximity. The areas besides the pure machinery ones are control areas that are filled with robots to slow Sonic down. After breaching several control areas, Sonic will finally enter the last area. It consists of small rooms connected by pipework that shoot Sonic around like the tubes in _Metropolis Zone_ from _Sonic 2_. At the end, Sonic will re-enter the main corridors (similar in design to Act 3). He will reach a long and tall corridor with large windows overlooking space, showing the Egg Eraser's monstrous velocity. In the middle of the hallway stands a thin and tall robot.

.

"I am Launch, the third created of Mechanix's Children." the robot spoke. He was ornately designed, with spirals and spires coming off of his flamboyant armor. He was mostly white except for a slowly pulsing rainbow color within the tiny crevices that mark his body. He holds a lot of armor on his legs and arms especially.

"You shall trespass no further. This will be the last place you move."

Sonic jumped ahead and rolled under his legs. Seeing the door in the distance, he runs but is stopped by a giant shield that suddenly appears. Turning around, the entire area is filled with small, floating white orbs. The robot quickly rearranges his limbs to lock to a more convenient location as it bends between the orbs and moves towards Sonic. Without having moved the individual limbs (only their joints), the robot comes before Sonic. He notices they have extended.

"You seem to misunderstand. You seem to think as Mechanix's Children, we have fallen so easily to you."

"What? What are you talking about?"

Launch rearranged himself again so that his head had a better angle to look at Sonic.

"Our goals aren't actually to kill you. Of course not. Do you believe what your enemies tell you so easily, Sonic the hedgehog?"

Sonic knitted his brow, but was struck. He never questioned the words of another before, not even Robotnik's words.

"We are created in the Image of Mechanix as his children, and hold Black Rocks within us to increase our power. With so many Black Rocks, so many of us, Mechanix's children. Us, with the potential to become the new Mechanix."

"Why are you telling me this? Is this something Robotnik programmed?"

The robot rearranged its arm and stabbed it near Sonic's head and stuck it in the shield. It drew closer.

"We are roboticized people, Sonic, we still have our free will. We chose to be roboticized in the first place."

"What?!" Sonic yelled, incredulous.

"Sonic, you're always speeding around so that you don't see the details. Why do you trust this image of the world you have? Why do you believe all of the lies?"

He jabbed another arm into the shield.

"We came to Doctor Robotnik. He showed us that everything is wrong. He showed us the true world."

He quickly moved his leg to his stomach and stabbed at Sonic's chest. Sonic rolled to the side around Launch.

"There must be no memory of Mobius. The world shall be completely reborn."

He quickly rearranged his parts and moved rapidly towards Sonic.

.

[Act 4 Boss : LAUNCH]

Launch, as described, will rearrange his arms, legs, and head often. He only moves at the joints, but he moves very rapidly, often changing position in sharp, quick moments. As he is long, sometimes Sonic can fit within his limbs. While he moves about, the floating white orbs will at various points connect with each other. They are all dangerous to the touch and basically cordon the arena for a few seconds. After that, they retract for less time and then connect to a different orb. As Sonic avoids both the orbs and Launch, Launch will strike using his body.

- At first, he simply stabs at Sonic with an extendable limb,

- but later the limb will be connected to another that will spin at a fast rate like a buzz-saw – effectively tripling the radius of its range and forcing Sonic to move faster.

- He'll also fire smaller, slow moving bullets at Sonic. They will curve around the white orbs and have their trajectory altered by their "gravity", but Launch will fire many of these bullets.

- Launch will also make his limbs all rotate an equidistant angle from each other so that they form a pinwheel. He will use this to move from floor to ceiling to floor, and Sonic can only avoid it by staying within the gap between his limbs.

- Later in the battle he will also fire a laser intermittently at Sonic while he moves in pinwheel fashion. Throughout the battle, Sonic can attempt to hit Launch.

Twelve hits will defeat him.

.

As Launch collapsed, the shield dissipated, Sonic turned his head away and began to run towards the door on the other side of the hallway. A shot rings out and Sonic yelps, his back suddenly bursting in hot, searing pain. He is knocked up and onto his side, where he skids across the smooth floor. He painfully gets up and looks back to see Launch, slowly dragging his mess towards Sonic. His cannon still aims at him.

"Doom is the fourth child of Mechanix. So far, we all had the ability to process chaos energy into energy, and with the Black Rocks, amplify that power. But we had no chaos energy to begin with. The core reactor is filled with chaos energy radiation. He protects it. You will not survive the true power of Doctor Robotnik's new robots."

Sonic tried to get back up, but Launch blasted at him again.

"The third civilization of this world created Mechanix. Mechanix was first used in petty warfare, misused by his creators. However, they saw the true reason why he was created, and built Images to worship his Ultimate Form. They built a new world, but separated into seven lands that eyed each other with suspicion. They soon descended into war, with their final creation being the Chaos Emeralds."

Sonic rolled back and forth until he finally got back on his feet.

"Mechanix, the savior of the world, took those Emeralds and was a step closer to perfection. Even being incomplete, his grace cleaned the world of its evil and corruption."

Sonic was running towards the door, and had nearly reached it, when his ears suddenly popped. He fell to the floor, and felt himself sliding. He turned to the side and saw that Launch had shot a window, which was beginning to shatter as air rushed out.

"You will survive this, Sonic the hedgehog. But you will not win."

Pieces of Launch flew out the hole. It was getting larger, and Sonic felt an incredible pull. He struggled onto his feet and moved. He didn't look back, his legs barely able to keep him standing against the incredible pressure gradient. Only a few feet from the door, he reaches it and the door opens automatically. A gale throws him down, and he is quick enough to just barely grasp a pipe in the hallway. He looks back and sees Launch being dragged towards the hole. Sonic shouts 'No!' but his voice is lost in the sucked-out air. The window finally shatters completely, and Launch is thrown through. He flies out perpendicular to the Eraser Egg and his pieces begin to scatter into space. Sonic can barely hold on himself, his arms numb. Every second he can feel the veins in his arm bulge and his muscles scathe. He loses grip, and quickly loses energy to hold on. Just before then, a steel shutter rolls over the windows in the room. As he drops, the shutter covers the hole, and he falls onto the floor. As the shutter covers the remainder of the window, he slides across the floor and lands into the wall under the windows.

Holding his arm, he gets back up. He takes a good few breaths and lets his ears readjust, then walks towards the open door. He doesn't look back.

.

[Act 5]

The walls are now tightly bound with large, jagged steel plates and thin, diagonal pylons. There are large mosaics of tiny, triangular light blue lights and straw-size energy fibers branch across all the surfaces of the rooms, with tiny energy pulses racing through them at high speeds. Areas are separated by doors, which may open automatically or require a spindash to break through.

The hallways are short in length and medium in height, and have many conjunctions and break off into multiple paths. There are some tall rooms that separate the hallways, which at first may have elevators or stairs for Sonic to use. There may also be somewhat taller rooms that have active generators, tanks, and very complicated machinery in the background, and tricky platforms separating both sides of the room. Sonic may need to activate bridges in significantly long ones.

The enemies in the level will initially be the normal mix of robots and Egg Robos, but one-thirds through, Sonic will run into a new type of robot. These will be bipedal and resemble Scrap, Death, and Launch. Henceforth they are called 'Mechanix Children'. They have much smarter intelligence than the other robots and will follow Sonic through doors and areas. They will attack in a variety of ways, by firing simple rapid fire laser cannons to locking-on with missiles or energy beams, to close-combat slashes or punches. Four hits will defeat one, and they will only collapse (instead of releasing a ring or animal).

As Sonic proceeds, the fibers embedded into all the structures will become thicker and the energy will flow slower. The lights will also become darker and more blue and the walls and floors will be more jagged with irregular shaped steel plates. The vertical rooms will have platforms that Sonic can jump up or down and the generator rooms will have trickier jumps. The enemies will have more and more of the Mechanix Children and less of the normal type of robots. Two-thirds through, some hallways will change to be a metal mesh tube inside a cylinder of rotating, moving energy. The vertical rooms will lose nearly all platforms and Sonic will need to wall jump to move in them.

Near the end, Sonic will come to a large iron door guarded by several of the Mechanix Children. After defeating them, Sonic will need to destroy four of the electric locks in the room that are in different, hard-to-reach places. After that, the door will open and Sonic will enter a catwalk that is on the perimeter of an immensely large and empty chamber. Far in the distance and center of the room is a very complicated mechanical and transparent sphere that is filled with high-activity energy and a column that reaches from wall to wall.

At the point where the catwalk reaches the column, Sonic will stop. It is so large that there is effectively a wall before him. He's about to move when a familiar figure jumps out from its top.

.

After landing, it says, "Hello, Sonic the hedgehog."

"Mechanix, you never die."

"Doom, get it," Mechanix replied.

Before Sonic could react, a shutter opened in the column, revealing another robot. It looked modern and in the style of most of Robotnik's creations. It was somewhat taller than Sonic and had a large torso, arms and legs.

"Understood." He quickly ran out and leaped up the column.

"What-"

"Your willpower never dies, Sonic. You fight on even though you have constantly lost."

"I haven't lost yet. As long as I fight you and Robotnik, the battle is still on. You haven't killed me yet."

"That will change soon enough. Doctor Robotnik will win no matter what cost. I will accomplish my task and kill you, no matter what cost."

"I've defeated you even with all seven Chaos Emeralds, twice! You have nothing else."

Suddenly, the brightness of the sphere in the room was completely shut out. There was a very loud groaning throughout the entire ship. The room turned dark except for the small emergency lights which lit up tiny areas of the room and catwalk. After a few seconds, the sphere glowed again, except with a white color.

A loudspeaker blares out. "Who is there in the reactor chamber?! Sonic? Haha, you damned fool! Did you think you could simply take out the Black Emerald to stop the Eraser Egg? Hahaha! And then die! Why, you are even too late to try."

A hologram monitor suddenly appeared off the side of the catwalk, and Sonic turned to look at it. It showed a video taken from a camera on the outside of the ship. In the distance was a few planets and asteroids, and a sun far away.

"We are approaching the Mobian solar system, and soon the amplified power from the Black Emerald will surge through the thousands of cannons of this ship onto your inferior world!"

Mechanix took a step forward. "Do not think you can escape this room."

The robot from before, Doom, jumps next to Mechanix, holding the Black Emerald. "The Chaos Emeralds will be able to power the ship for only a few minutes. The ship withdraws too much power."

Mechanix took it and placed it inside his chest. He instantly began to glow, his eyes disappearing into white from the heat. "The energy from the Chaos Emeralds still circulates within me, and with this I will become even stronger. I will destroy you, Sonic."

"So, you're willing to risk Robotnik's grand war machine for the sake of killing me? You've gotten selfish, Mechanix."

Doom shouted, "Shut up! You have no right to speak to the Ultimate Being like that. He is going to return the world to perfection! His is the true power!"

"I don't care. I'll destroy both of you and this entire blasted ship. Robotnik is going down."

Mechanix began to float, and his white shield flashed around him. "You will never stop Doctor Robotnik. When the sun rises on Mobius, his will shall be complete!"

Doom leaped over Sonic, cornering him between the two. Sonic looked to Mechanix, and ran at him.

.

[Act 5 Boss : MECHANIX GENIUS + DOOM]

This battle will take place on the catwalk that is connected to the perimeter of the large circular room. Sonic will run between Mechanix who floats ahead, and Doom who chases from behind. When they come to the column that connects on opposite sides of the wall, they will enter a narrow tunnel that leads into a large mechanical chamber with energy moving freely on the ceiling.

- Doom will attack Sonic directly if he slows down too much,

- and he occasionally fires a large energy blast at Sonic.

- He'll also load up his rocket booster in his ankles and jet towards Sonic for a punching attack.

- He could also fly into the air and drop down to attack, or fly into the air and fire energy blasts down at Sonic.

If Sonic can attack him while he's not running, he will damage him. 12 hits will defeat him, causing him to collapse.

.

Mechanix, however, cannot be attacked because of his white, spherical shield.

- He will fire many thin lasers down at Sonic and toss condensed energy orbs which explode on contact with the ground.

- He can swoop down and stay hovering behind Sonic, drop onto the ground and make a dashing slash attack off screen (only if Doom is defeated) to return behind him, or land and jump twice to also return behind him. He can perform the attacks in the opposite direction, as well.

To damage him, Sonic must attack Mechanix from below while they are in the column chamber so that he is pushed into the energy. After two times, the shield will dissipate. Mechanix will then add new attacks, such as:

- flying over Sonic and firing large laser beams downward,

- creating a sphere that explodes in shock waves with gaps Sonic can jump through,

- and an instantaneous dash to Sonic's position for a slash attack.

After twenty-six hits, he will fall as well.

.

Mechanix short-circuits, electricity arcing around him. Sonic spindashes into him again and takes the Black Emerald.

"You can't win. You will never win."

Mechanix simply looks at Sonic. Sonic doesn't say anything more and starts charging a new spindash. Suddenly, he is knocked out of it and is sent tumbling down the catwalk. Behind him stands Doom, hunched over with a broken arm and a severely dented body and head.

"Damn it! I don't have time for this!" Sonic yells, and quickly spindashes Doom into the wall. He's about to attack again when the lights go out again. Sonic stumbles, but when he regains his footing the lights return, although dim. As Sonic's turned, Doom grabs him from behind.

"Agh! You persistent little..." Sonic growls, struggling against his heavy arm.

"The fourth civilization rose from the ashes of its predecessor, the Chaos Emeralds hidden from the new world. They finally knew peace, for the ancient people of the world had nearly all died and left their bloodshed with them. The New Mobians built grand cities and lived carefree in peaceful harmony, yet they never advanced. Content with their world, they decided to remain where they were, unable to evolve, afraid of war, stagnating," Doom explained as Sonic ignored him, trying to pull the arm away.

He then hears metal sliding behind him, and a growing humming coming from within Doom. He turned to see that a cannon located in his chest had revealed itself behind the armor, and energy was welling up within it. He looks towards Mechanix, but sees he's missing.

"Damn it!"

"Then Doctor Robotnik arose, whose genius revived centuries' development of technology in but a few years. The people were not content, and fought he, he who would liberate them all from their ignorance and disgusting flesh. But they held contempt for the future, and so Robotnik decided to bring the world into a new age without them."

Sonic pulls the arm as hard as he can, but it doesn't budge. The light from the cannon casts Sonic's shadow before them, and a groan from the entire Eraser Egg arises. He then sees Mechanix flying towards him from the reactor core.

"What! He got the Chaos Emeralds while I was held back... damn it, he keeps on healing himself with those."

The cannon's heat starts burning Sonic's back. He hears a beeping from within Doom's body. Just then, Sonic remembered.

"The Black Emerald! It should..." he said while grabbing it. He felt his own power grow exponentially, and he yanked Doom's arm out of his shoulder. He quickly ran out of the way, and Doom's cannon fired a gigantic blast of energy. It rocketed through the chamber and collided into the column, splitting through a segment. Mechanix turned back to look as a chain reaction of explosions surged down both sides of the column. Hitting the mechanical sphere, an enormous fireball expanded at a incredibly fast rate. Sonic didn't even look back at Doom as he dashed towards the nearest door. He saw Mechanix fly towards it as well, blasting open the door. He rushes into the corridor after him.

.

[Act 6]

Mechanix will start out within sight, however if Sonic slows down he will slowly lose him. He can still move through the level, however if he moves too slow, he will be caught up in the inferno that rushes from behind. Warning klaxons will blare and scream while robots and doors will be quickly dispatched by Mechanix ahead. For the first half of the level, Sonic will have to avoid explosions and hazards caused from the destruction of the reactor core. Many machines, such as elevators, which would normally work will break or stop in front of him. The level is mainly vertical and Sonic will need adept wall jumping to keep up.

In the second half, after a long horizontal section with blast doors clamping down behind him, the explosion will not chase him anymore and he'll lose Mechanix. Sonic will return to a similar level design as Act 2. However, many robots will be in his path, including some Mechanix Children. Sonic will find himself, if he looks out the windows, in the area below the bridge of the entire ship. He will want to race up the walls and across the ceilings at high speeds to get to Robotnik, who is close by, yelling through the loudspeaker for robots to keep the ship from completely breaking apart. At the end, Sonic will have to climb a very tall shaft with spikes in the walls at several points. At the top is a door that leads to a wide spiral staircase. It will stop at several points to open up to a room in the center filled with robots. He will fight a large number of combinations of every robot he has since fought, and even another Egg T-Robo. At the top, a large door will enter into a wide storage area with a window taking up the entire expanse of the wall. It resembles the vista in the _Death Egg_ in _Sonic 2_.

.

"You have been quite the pain, Sonic the hedgehog," a familiar voice spoke.

Dr. Robotnik hovered in, sitting in his Egg-O-Matic.

"I am sick of these games, Robotnik. Is this another Apocalypse, huh? Or is it really your grandest plan you've ever conceived?" Sonic asked, grimacing.

"Every Apocalypse was just another distraction for you to play with as I completed the Eraser Egg. Every little thing I have done is up to this moment, and it has worked very well. You have played completely in my game, and now that all cards are down, I will rake in my spoils."

"Your reactor is destroyed, there is no way you can operate this ship. I defeated Mechanix and all of his 'Children'. You cannot win, you can only run away. It's over."

Robotnik cackled.

Sonic continues. "You don't even anger me anymore. I don't care who you kill in cold blood like a coward. I have absolute resolve now. I am going to _kill you_."

"That is very admirable. You have decided to spur everything else, just to end my life? Oh, I just remembered. You have already tried many times. You destroyed my Scrap Brain factory, my Deathegg twice, left my Launch Base in ruins, prevented the Doomsday from coming... Did you find it fun, Sonic?"

"Duh. I'll never let you get away with your mad schemes. Blowing up everything you made is just a bonus."

"You are so genuine, so light-hearted, ahahaha! And you let me live, every time!"

Sonic stood, frozen. He did not change his expression, but the truth hit him deeply. The realization finally reverberated throughout his body. Robotnik had always continued to plague Mobius, and he couldn't stop him for good. He had always let him run free. He could never bring himself to really stop him... to really... kill him.

"It is because you have no sense of will. You are weak and feeble-minded, unable to commit to an action you deem 'immoral'. You would compromise instead of pursue your ultimate goal, because..."

Sonic didn't speak.

"...you are just an animal. You were messily born as an animal and you will just as disgustingly die as one. You smell, and you sound unpleasant, and you are ugly, and you are weak. You, and your kind, and your world, have stayed too long in the past. You seek peace and harmony although you fight and bicker in your crude animal ways. You are inferior and repugnant. You mock intelligence with your vile attempts at art and language. You refuse science and technology, afraid. Scared, in your little holes, cowering in your cesspools."

"How are you any better, talking like you're a god overlooking us?!" Sonic retorted. He didn't know what else to say.

"Of course I am a god, compared to you. I can transform you all to perfection, to peace in my society of machines. Roboticization leads to perfect harmony and cooperation in a world that seeks advancement in all fields, at every moment, eternally. It is the beauty of machines, where efficiency is a law instead of a probability."

Sonic regained his strength and responded, "And you'll kill in cold-blood people for the sake of your soulless world. You have no concern for life. You attacked a city full of hundreds of thousands of civilians, you roboticized thousands more, you killed the mayor's bodyguards without a care, you even burnt down an entire planet and you still want to eradicate all living things. You are nothing but a murderer. You have no more value than that!"

"Hahaha, fool, life, _life_ has no value! It is finite, full of fluids and flesh and suffering and specks of dust that die in an instant compared to the machines that can live forever. You fool, you do not understand how magnificent it all is. While you have scampered around to defeat my Apocalypses, my forces gathered the Chaos Emeralds for Mechanix and I looked over the creation of my greatest invention yet. I had come across the truth of this planet's history, and set into motion in all the parts of the world a plan so intricate that you could only fathom the omniscience of a god behind it! You are nothing but a pawn in the greatest plan I have ever conceived, and even now you are blissfully ignorant of how severely I have succeeded."

Caught up in his own rantings, Robotnik flicked his arms out and rose them grandiosely. "This grand ship will be the last thing any Mobian will ever see. While you ran aimlessly in that space station, I moved this ship here and sent my robots to hold down their pitiful forces on earth. It was too easy! All of the aliens' power came from the solar power generator on that mountain which was amplified through the Black Emerald. All I had to do was take it, just take it! Then they were left in the dark shooting wildly at my never-ending robots. Then! With the Black Emerald, my Eraser Egg had more than enough power to fire every single cannon it has! The entire planet was burnt to ash! Hahahaha! Did you see that chasm, Sonic?! That was a cannon's beam tearing through the earth! Hahahaha! And on Mobius, as they still struggle against my Egg Tempest, I will descend with this immortal ship and extinguish their petty hopes! There is no chance of failure. The world is mine!"

Sonic did not change expression. "Then here, I'll kill you. I won't let you go... any longer."

Robotnik was disconcerted by Sonic's lack of reaction. He lost his excitation. "Futile. The reactor had been repaired before you even came here. My machines are that efficient. You will never completely destroy me and my creations. I can never die. And you can never kill me."

"I may not have killed you yet, but I will continue to fight you no matter what. I will never surrender to you."

Robotnik was silently getting infuriated. Sonic's stoic response set him on edge. "...so be it. I wanted you to suffer, but I will just kill you now. I've had enough of you, hedgehog."

Sonic held up his fists. "Bring it."

.

[Act 6 Boss]

Two long and thin metal cables will shoot out the sides of the Egg-O-Matic, with small cones on their ends. It will look exactly like the "boss" of _Hidden Palace Zone_ in _Sonic & Knuckles_. If Sonic touches either of the cones, he will be electrocuted and sent flying back.

- Robotnik will move back and forth in the storage room, and at first sway the cables back and forth,

- but later spin them around at a faster speed.

- He will also occasionally swing them at Sonic.

- At fourteen hits, Robotnik will pose both cables to simultaneously grab Sonic as he approaches him. The only way for Sonic to avoid it is to jump over the cables and hit Robotnik, sending him backwards. Otherwise, if Sonic is within half of the radius of the cables, they will spring and grab him, electrocuting him until he dies.

Sonic can hit him at any time, and sixteen hits will defeat this phase.

.

In the second phase, Robotnik will drop the cables and slowly move backwards.

- He will pull out his pistol and shoot at Sonic from the cockpit. There are two seconds that Robotnik will spend aiming, and if Sonic does not move at the end of the second, the bullet will hit him (and he'll lose rings).

If Sonic hits the small ship twice, he will stop firing to repair the ship from the inside. After about fifteen seconds, he will begin firing again. Meanwhile, they will move from the cargo room into a corridor, then through several rooms. Robots will attack him in small numbers, but they will become progressively stronger (from the basic robots to Mechanix Children).

.

In the third phase, once Sonic and Robotnik enter a very large and dark room, the robots will stop attacking. Sonic will stand on a bridge, and in the distance, dim lights glow steadily. Before Sonic can attack Robotnik, however, a thin column will burst up out of the bridge, giving him a chance to escape. It has five glass "eyes" from top to bottom with metal shutters over them.

- From the bottom upwards the shutters will open, revealing the eye, which will then fire a laser and shut.

- After the top eye fires, there will be a pause and then another volley from the top downwards.

Sonic needs to hit an eye twice to destroy it. The distance between the eyes is just enough that Sonic can fit between two lasers if he is in spinball form. After destroying all the eyes, the column will break and collapse.

.

Sonic will come across another column as he moves on, but now the firing pattern is more varied, although not yet random.

- At the bottom of the column is a shutter that will occasionally open to send out small spiked balls at varying speeds which Sonic must jump over.

Two hits to each eye will again destroy the column.

.

The next column will rise earlier, and before Sonic will reach it, part of the floor will also be lifted so that it lies above him.

- Lying on its underside is a larger eye which will charge and then fire a laser beam over Sonic's location, similar to the boss of _Flying Fortress Zone_ in _Sonic 2_. The laser fire from the column will be random now. The ceiling eye will take five hits, and the other eyes two, before all of it collapses around Sonic.

.

The final column will only have one eye which will move up and down the column in a semi-random fashion.

- Its laser will be twice as long, but it will also fire lasers at two equidistant angles both above and below the main, horizontal laser. These angled lasers will have three short shots. Once the volley is finished, it will move for a few seconds before firing again.

Sonic must hit it within this time. Eight hits will destroy it.

.

Finally, Sonic will catch up to Robotnik. His Egg-O-Matic is dark, but can be seen from the light emitted in the cockpit. Before Sonic can attack, large machine sounds will reverberate through the chamber and the Egg-O-Matic will slowly rise. In the background, lights will be turned on a set at a time, illuminating the walls and the bridge. The walls are covered in scaffolding and very complicated machinery, with large arrays of pipes and wires. Robotnik is actually in the cockpit of a very large bipedal mechanical suit. It quickly rises its fists and breaks the bridge before Sonic, sending him hurtling to the suit's feet. As the rest of the bridge collapses, Robotnik will attack.

In the final phase of this battle, Sonic will have to avoid Robotnik's enormous attacks while finding a way to reach the cockpit and attack him directly. The arena is the entire chamber, from the start of the bridge to where the suit starts out from, as the bridge is no longer in the way.

- Robotnik will have the fist slam attack which will crash all the way into the ground. Sonic will need to jump if he is within a few meters of the crash, or else the invisible shock waves will hurt him. With the arms down, Sonic has a chance to make an attack. He can jump onto the arms in a few seconds before they rise up again. The arms' default position is cocked perpendicular to the body. However, the cockpit is still out of reach. For Sonic to attack, he will need to charge a spindash at the top side of the elbow, where there is a curve. With enough speed, Sonic will fly into the air and will have to position himself to land onto the cockpit. He can bounce up to four hits before Robotnik pulls out his pistol and shoots him down (after the second bounce he can be seen getting it out).

- Robotnik can also stomp with the feet of the suit, which will similarly release invisible shock waves. Sonic can use this chance to get in between the feet, and jump as the forward foot lands. This way he can get behind the suit. He can then jump and attack a weak spot on the opposite side of the suit's knee.

After the time it takes to make two hits, Robotnik will turn around.

- He will also fire napalm and lasers at Sonic's position,

- along with slow and fast missiles, both homing and dumb.

After twelve hits in the cockpit, a shield will cover it, preventing Sonic from attacking it anymore. Sonic's next target is behind the suit's knee. After six hits, it will break and the suit will fall onto its knees. If Sonic already landed six hits before, then the suit will still be standing, but it will not walk any further. A final hit will then break it.

Collapsed, Sonic will be unable to move to the other side of the suit. He will have to jump and attack its back, where he will then break through a weak spot, spindash through the center, and land on the arm on the other side.

- Robotnik will fire missiles and lasers nonstop as Sonic tries to position a final spindash up the curve of the arm, into the air, and onto the cockpit for the final blow.

.

After the exhausting battle, the suit will slowly fall apart, discharging electricity and catching on fire. Robotnik will release the Egg-O-Matic, but being heavily damaged, it can hardly hover in the air. Without skipping a beat, Sonic is already running up the suit. He leaps, curls into a spinball, and cuts through its underside. He lands and turns, watching Robotnik crash into the ground and get sent tumbling across the floor.

Robotnik fumbles through his coats and whips out his pistol, but Sonic is already standing before him. He quickly knocks the gun out of his hand, leaving Robotnik defenseless.

"You lost," Sonic said.

Robotnik didn't say anything and didn't move.

"You can't run away anymore."

"I don't intend to."

Sonic glared at Robotnik. Robotnik stared at Sonic straight in the eyes. Sonic could see them, again. He could see Robotnik's dark eyes. Their ferocity. It hadn't changed. They pierced Sonic.

"I won."

A klaxon resounded throughout the chamber, and the hallway leading to it. Sonic saw above Robotnik holographic screens appearing everywhere, all with the same image. They appeared to the sides of where the bridge once was, and popped up a few meters between each other throughout the room. One finally appeared right behind Robotnik. It again was a video feed from outside the Eraser Egg, but this time it had stopped moving. All of the cannons were rotating and positioning themselves. They had finally reached Mobius.

"What-no! No way!"

Robotnik smiled. "All this time I have been distracting you, Sonic. Again and again and again. You naive child. I have been leading you to the Apocalypse again and again, and even in person I pull you away from your true objective, again and again. You seek vengeance. You seek retribution. It's so easy it makes me sick. Now witness the end of Mobius! Cannons, fire!"

An electronic voice resonated throughout. "Attack program initiated. Cannons primed and ready. Firing now!"

Sonic looked intently. From the bow the cannons began firing. At first, tens of tiny pinpricks of light shot out, but soon hundreds fired, increasing in number and size...

Just then, the ship shook violently, with sudden bursts of screeching steam and resounding booms, with every surface vibrating from a very low-pitched groaning. Sonic held himself up by one hand. Many of the monitors were covered in static. He turned to see the monitor in front of them, which was intermittently whiting out. The tip of the bow had blown to pieces, and many of the cannons were cracked and broken. Several small areas of the ship were cracking, and fire could be seen through the tiny circles that were the portholes.

Robotnik turned to a monitor. He yelled, "No... This is impossible! This should not be happening! What could it be-"

"You lost after all, Robotnik. Admit it!" Sonic shouts. He grabs Robotnik by the cuff and strikes him in the back of the head. He collapses again, onto his side. Grabbing his head in pain, Robotnik stumbles and turns to face Sonic. He stared beyond him.

"No, even if there was a glitch, an error, it should be fixed. It shouldn't be like this, it's supposed to be perfect! What went wrong, what went wrong..." Robotnik mumbled on.

"That's enough! It's time to end this one and for all," Sonic said. He rolled into a spinball and charged up. Robotnik continued muttering to himself, trying to solve the problem. He span faster and faster, the floor being ripped up into chunks and dust and smoke starting to whisk away.

"Stop!" a voice called out. A laser shot through the room and struck Sonic. He unrolled from the spinball as the shot sent him skidding across the floor. Although dazed and hurt, he quickly gets on his feet and turns around. Mechanix hovered above, in a distant corner of the room. He dashed towards Robotnik and stood before him. His white shield flashed on.

"Mechanix! It was you, wasn't it? You took the Black Emerald!" Robotnik said in exasperation.

"Doctor Robotnik, I needed its power to defeat S-"

"You idiot!" Robotnik yelled, quickly clambering onto his feet. "The Chaos Emeralds can only deliver so much energy at once! The Black Emerald will always amplify the energy given to it! There is a very clear and important reason why I used it instead!"

Mechanix was about to speak, but Robotnik interrupted him again. "Damn it! This power you have... you have the Chaos Emeralds, too, don't you?! All seven! You fool! You damned fool!"

He hits Mechanix in the back of the head, although Mechanix didn't move and Robotnik clutches his hand in pain. "I ordered you not to take it. You are my slave, Mechanix! Must I reprogram you again!"

Sonic, tired of watching, spoke. "Robotnik, this is the end. Your greatest plan failed! Through all of this, I persevered, and you finally fell! You were wrong."

He raised his fists. "I'll kill both you and Mechanix, and this will all end here."

Robotnik stepped out from behind Mechanix's shield. "It _will_ all end here."

"You, Sonic, are a hardened combat veteran. Of course you can fight Mechanix with all seven Chaos Emeralds. Mechanix in his Grandmaster form, that was all that was needed to destroy the third civilization. But he was built for more than that. Much more."

He began to pace, disturbingly calm. "So what if my Eraser Egg was stopped? It was hardly your doing, anyway. I still fired a few thousand shots. There's still the fourth Apocalypse underway."

Sonic was shocked. "Fourth?!" He couldn't attack him now. He had to know.

"I still have Mechanix, and all seven Chaos Emeralds. I can rebuild. I will still fight, and I will win."

"You say I cannot escape? I have already completely documented Mechanix's design. I have already created prototypes of an incredible technology that can never be destroyed! It only took a few months. It's a rather low-level thing. I have calculations. I know that I cannot be defeated by you, even if you are the world's fastest rodent. I'm the world's smartest human. You can never beat me. Yes, yes... it's all fine. I understand."

Sonic, although angrier, was unfazed. "You say that as your greatest creation to date falls apart around you. You say that after I nearly kill you!"

Robotnik turned away.

"I'm still alive."

Sonic was about to say something, but Robotnik raised his arm.

"My mind is so great, that even my creations must be planned to be limited. The universe cannot support the reality of my genius."

He pointed at the monitor. "None of my works will last forever. They will be destroyed as I see fit. It is in the brief luminance of my intelligence, from their birth to their death, that is most beautiful. You don't seem to understand that I _never make any errors_. Everything is created in one go as I want it to be, perfectly, and it ends likewise. You don't understand the depth of any of this, if you can't even call me god! Central command, self-destruct!"

Sonic didn't even hear the computer voice acknowledge the command as deafening explosions immediately overpowered the air. The monitor showed the hull of the Eraser Egg in various parts rapidly bursting off, and the feed was quickly destroyed.

Robotnik began walking away. "I will just walk away like I always have. I will rebuild and threaten the world again. I'm starting to stop caring about stuff like this. Me, I will always live. You and your world of lies will die from attrition soon enough. I'll be building stronger machines while things I set in motion earlier will make your people run around and get themselves killed. Then I'll go in... destroy everything... build Robotnikland! And then, then... I will..."

An explosion bursts through the wall, fire licking the ceiling. Another comes from the floor behind Sonic. Smoke puffs out. Seeing Robotnik, Sonic starts running, but Mechanix quickly rushes forward and attacks. Sonic sidesteps and strikes Mechanix in the stomach. Mechanix stumbles back a bit.

"You did not have this power before..."

Sonic was already running, however, and attacked again. Mechanix's chest was broken open, and the Chaos Emeralds spilled out. He quickly ran to grab them as Mechanix got back up to attack. Summoning their power, he transformed into Super Sonic again. His glove began to glow strongly.

"The Black Emerald!"

Sonic did not attack again, chasing Robotnik down into the small corridor he entered.

.

[Act 7]

Much like the first half of Act 6, Super Sonic will be avoiding hazards that this time will only slow him down. They will be much more present and he will have to swerve between them. Explosions will burst in front of him, but he can pass through them unharmed. He will be moving very fast. He will need to avoid collapsing objects and closing doors that could potentially crush him. The level will also be much curvier and will have frequent, sharp changes in direction, forcing Sonic to have good control over his flying skills to survive. The level will be short, and will end as he enters a hangar where a small mechanical suit (this time only about three times Sonic's size) will start to fly out into space. As Super Sonic chases him, Mechanix will have caught up as well.

.

**Lunar Fight** [Boss : ROBOTNIK SUIT + MECHANIX CHAMPION] (5/25)

The fight will begin in space. Mobius is able to be seen in the background. Robotnik will be rushing ahead and Sonic will not be able to catch up yet. Rings which were used in the Eraser Egg have been sent hurtling into space, which will sustain Super Sonic if he can keep his ring amount high. Mechanix will be in his Grandmaster form, which will be exactly as it was in Eraser Egg Act 1. After sixteen hits, Mechanix will be defeated for a short while. This is when the three will approach the surface of the moon, and this is when Robotnik will finally turn around and fight.

Robotnik, Sonic, and Mechanix will all be constantly moving to the right over the moon's surface, but they can still move freely around each other to fight.

- Robotnik will be able to ram Sonic with his shoulders,

- as well as strike with his fists and legs in quick, single attacks.

- He can launch tens of homing missiles

- or nearly a hundred dumb missiles.

- He has a lock-on laser attack

- He has a scattered laser attack similar to that of the final column on the bridge in Eraser Egg's Act 6 Boss.

- He also has an energy sword that he unsheathes at various times. It has limited energy, but it doubles Robotnik's range. He will slice horizontally, vertically, and stab.

- Throughout the battle, he will have an energy barrier. To be damaged, Sonic will need to turn into a spinball just as he is hit by a punch, kick, or the sword. Doing so, he will knock Robotnik off balance and temporarily disable the barrier. He must then close in and attack.

Eight hits will defeat him.

.

The battle isn't finished yet. Mechanix will return in a blur and knock into Sonic, knocking the Black Emerald loose. He will quickly snatch it. Using its power, he will glow brightly, white energy flowing from his body out into space, sometimes arcing back into his body. He will move instantaneously again, however afterimages will fade out behind him which will help to determine his movement.

- He can dash towards Sonic to do a 100-hit combo in a few seconds if the first punch connects.

- He can also send many projectile attacks moving at high speeds.

- His slash attack can divide as they spread out,

- or he can send, effectively, a beam of slash attacks with rapid slicing of his hand.

- He can also fire multiple lock-on lasers at once, such that if Sonic continues to move more lasers will continue to target him.

- He can also release waves of small energy orbs that will rotate or spiral as they fly outwards, forcing Sonic to move in a complex pattern to avoid being hit.

If Sonic can predict where Mechanix will move next, he can attack and damage him. After four hits, the Black Emerald will be knocked out of his hold. If Sonic can grab it, he will be charged and glow much brighter. He will move much faster and have enough time to land four hits on either Robotnik or Mechanix. After that, one of them will attack directly, which will knock the Black Emerald out of Sonic's hold. He will be dazed for long enough that he can't grab it twice in a row.

If Robotnik grabs it, the crevices between the armor plates and bolts will glow red.

- His attacks are much faster,

- and he will fire missiles which will then lock-on Sonic and fire their own lasers. The missiles can be either homing or dumb.

- He will also charge his arm and fire a large, spinning helical beam. Sonic will have to position himself between the twin conduits of energy and move backwards to avoid being hit. After three seconds the attack will stop.

Eight hits will similarly knock the Black Emerald back out of his hand.

.

Mechanix and Robotnik will continue fighting Sonic whether any of them has a Black Emerald or not. All of their attacks will make Sonic lose rings quicker for a short span of time, with stronger attacks forcing him to lose more. If Sonic holds the Black Emerald, his ring count will slowly _rise_ instead of fall. Once either Mechanix or Robotnik suffers thirty-two hits, whoever it is will be disabled and fly out of range.

.

Once both are defeated, they will finally stop moving. Mechanix will dash for the Black Emerald, spinning in space. Sonic will be unable to reach him in time, and Mechanix will quickly activate his white shield, which will be large enough to knock Sonic back.

"Now this battle will come to an end," he said, his voice modulated by fluctuating magnetic waves caused by his own energy. He charges a beam attack in his hand, a brilliant white orb slowly pulsating progressively faster. Sonic looked at him intently, ready to evade at an instant.

However, Mechanix turned and aimed at the Eraser Egg, and he shot out the energy. A giant scorching beam of shining white light, almost a hundred times Mechanix's height, blasted towards the gargantuan ship that was slowly breaking apart already. The beam ripped completely through the Eraser Egg, through that gargantuan width. Like water soaking through paper, the energy surged through the ship and disintegrated it. A few seconds later, the Eraser Egg had vanished into a large cloud of dust.

"So this is the power..." Mechanix spoke.

Sonic tried to speak, completely overwhelmed by the strength he didn't show in battle. He then felt an incredibly imminent pressure of doom.

Robotnik's voice, broken by static, carried over to the two. "Mechanix! What... you think you're doing?! The ship... off of your design, it would have rebuilt... why... self-destructed! I told-"

Sonic looked at Robotnik incredulously. He tried to say "What?!" but his words were lost in space.

"Silence. I have been waiting for this moment, where my memory is finally cleared of the barriers you put into it. I can finally remember everything, with the power of the Black Emerald..."

"No! You... Mechanix, you are mine! It's absolutely impossible for you to disobey me!" Robotnik shouted.

"No, no... I understand now... I was really created, to protect the people who made me... to save the world from the Chaos Energy that was destroying it... to absorb it within... and resurrect the old world."

As Mechanix said those last few words, his eyes lit up and he looked at Robotnik through the black windowed cockpit.

"I was to take the power of all of the ancient three generations, and make it my own, so that I would return their power back to them. I am to restore Old Mobius. That is my true purpose."

Sonic didn't dare respond. Robotnik was also silent, but he quickly spoke up.

"Then I'll destroy you now! I only need the Emeralds anyway!"

Robotnik shot out hundreds of missiles at Mechanix, but Mechanix wiped them out with his shield instantly. He rose his arm and charged another beam attack.

"No, Robotnik, I will kill _you_. You are the greatest threat to Old Mobius. You must die."

Robotnik was already fleeing, flying away from the moon towards Mobius at full speed. He didn't turn around, firing all the missiles he had remaining back at Mechanix.

"So die."

Mechanix fired the beam again, easily consuming all of the rockets. Robotnik's suit vanished behind white light. Sonic only stared.

When the beam dissipated, nothing remained of the suit. Nothing remained of anything. Nothing anywhere. Sonic was frozen. Robotnik was dead. He was dead.

Mechanix looked at Mobius. The glowing energy of the seven Chaos Emeralds amplified by the Black Emerald made him a miniature sun. Sonic, who was behind him, saw his light eclipsing the entire planet. The after-image burned into his retinas. Mechanix turned around. He looked at Sonic.

Before Sonic could react, Mechanix had already thrust his spiked knee deep into Sonic's stomach. As soon as Sonic coughed out blood and felt the pain flood forth, Mechanix had already struck his neck, elbowed his back, and punched him in the solar plexus. Sonic's vision quickly blurred and faded, barely able to register the tsunami of pain rolling over him. Mechanix then grabbed his arm and swirled him around. While doing so, he rapidly shot out any number of lasers that seared into Sonic's skin, despite his Super Sonic invincibility. Sonic's vision was fading to black as he just barely realized he was kneed in the gut. His last thoughts were incoherent, confused, and amazed. All he could see was Mechanix's burning after-image as he faded into unconsciousness, his limp body rocketing towards the atmosphere of Mobius.


	7. Sonic Ballistic, Part 6

Part 6

Sonic finds himself coming to in a shed made out of corrugated boards and basic woodwork. Tails notices him and remarks, "You've been out for a long while, Sonic. I didn't expect you to fall out of the sky! I didn't even think you'd make it from that portal..."

Sonic grabs his side and winces, and looks around. He moves off of the stretcher he was on and walked a little bit. He sees medical supplies next to weapons and provisions. Farther on, Tails walks up to him from behind.

"Sonic, while you were gone, several days had passed... The day you left, the Egg Tempest had at that point mostly been destroyed, but the Grand City military was still severely disabled. However, even in small amounts, Robotnik's forces were constantly reinforced, and we have been fighting nonstop since. The military has crumbled, suffering many casualties and broken equipment. We've been fighting mostly on our own..."

Sonic looked out the entrance. Some buildings were completely crumbled, while others were marked by craters and broken pillars and glass. He could hear the sharp snaps of rifle fire in the distance. "Robotnik has never been this serious before. At first, we all assumed he would strike with an army but we got accustomed to his style. We didn't treat him seriously before... and then he strikes with an entire air force, and then a laser air strike from the sky! We completely underestimated him, Sonic. We need to stop him with all our strength."

Sonic turned his head slightly to Tails. "He's already stopped, Tails. He's dead."

Tails stared back. He then stuttered, "S-Sonic! Thi-this isn't the time to be joking. People have been dying here! This city is being torn apart! Sonic...Sonic, you wouldn't know, always running off and fighting when you want! We really needed your help..."

Sonic turned back. "I didn't think I would come back, myself. I thought it would all end there... More or less, it actually did. Mechanix used that attack, and Robotnik... disappeared. Then..."

A sharp pain burst into Sonic's stomach. He clutched it and made a small gasp. Holding it, Tails looked at him strangely. "Sonic, it's too easy to assume he's dead. He's bound to be alive, somewhere. Always running away, building up, striking again..."

Tails walked next to Sonic and looked out the window too. "We're going to hunt him down, this time. With our entire force we'll find him and corner him and bring him to justice. I'm leading them. They made me commander of the Grand City armed forces."

"What?" Sonic turned to Tails and backed a step. "Tails, why?!"

Tails looked back stoically, "Your way of fighting Robotnik hasn't been effective. He's been murdering hundreds of innocent people at the very start, and he could easily raise that death toll higher if we let him. I'm still going to fight, you know... on the front lines."

He looked out the window. "We're not waiting for you, anymore. As soon as our forces regain strength, we will mobilize."

Sonic retorted, "Waiting for me? Tails, I didn't mean to go through that portal! It sent me into the Special Zone, and then there was this giant black miasma where I learned the past of Mobius..." Recalling it, he spoke faster, "I learned so much about it, Tails! This world was once run by the echidnas, who split into seven civilizations. They created the Black Emerald, and the seven Chaos Emeralds, too! They-"

"Sonic." Tails said.

Sonic looked back at Tails. He was hurried and jittery, his arms raised up, fists clenched.

"Sonic, I don't care. I don't want to know about history. I don't want to study anything anymore, not until Robotnik falls. This isn't time to be a kid. You weren't here. You didn't see people before you... die... You always ran ahead, not caring for the victims around you, to fight Robotnik yourself. It's your own justice, isn't it?"

Sonic didn't reply. Tails stared through Sonic, his eyes fixed and his posture rigid. Sonic lowered his hands. The pain still bounced in his side.

"That man you fought with, Zaga. He wants to talk to you about Mechanix."

Sonic turned away, feeling a choking feeling in his throat. He made a slight nod and walked out the entrance of the shed.

People were hurrying about, carrying supplies, ordering commands and pointing down roads. Sonic looked around. He smelt gunpowder and metal. He saw, standing by a corner shop, an echidna who looked completely out of place, surveying the area vigilantly.

"Zaga." Sonic called as he walked towards him.

Zaga turned. "Sonic. You are alive, after all."

Sonic couldn't stand his steady glare. He looked away. "It's complicated, but... I know a lot about the history of Mobius, including the time before and after your civilization. I was teleported to the space station where the Black Emerald was built, and I walked in the ruins of a palace where they rediscovered Mechanix and researched him."

Zaga spoke immediately. "You can tell me about that later. Mechanix went into space, and that is where the rain of fire originated. It is also where I saw a small explosion just a few days ago, the same one where that fox found you falling from. You fought him. Did you win?"

Sonic's side suddenly flared, and he grabbed it, wincing. He grumbled out a "We fought..." He breathed in and spoke, "...we fought many times. Even with all seven Chaos Emeralds, I won over and over again. He kept on restoring... he never died. I -urk... I didn't cause that explosion, though. Mechanix took the Black Emerald and destroyed that battleship in one hit, and he... probably killed Robotnik, too... He easily beat me. I..."

Sonic suddenly realized. He froze, all of his wounds suddenly bursting in pain.

"I... had no chance at all..."

Zaga didn't change expression. He still looked at Sonic. "This is why you should have concentrated when fighting him before! He was vulnerable without those Chaos Emeralds. With them, he has become his ultimate form as the Ultimate Being, invulnerable. With the Black Emerald, too, his power has multiplied by amounts I could never estimate."

Sonic was gripping his body, groaning. Zaga still looked at him, continuing. "You fool, you could have stopped him. Now, it is nothing but impossible to kill him in this form."

Sonic suddenly coughed violently, small specks of blood landing on the pavement. He closed his eyes tight, his body shaking, raging in fire. Zaga paused, but then grabbed Sonic's chin and forced it up. Sonic stared at him, trying to hold back his coughs.

"It's still possible to stop him, however. He was sealed before when he had the power of the Chaos Emeralds. He can be sealed now. Once he is sealed, we can easily destroy him."

Sonic looked at him incredulously. "But, how?! How, after everything we've done?!"

Zaga still stared at Sonic. "You fool! What have you been forgetting about this entire time? What could seal off his power completely?"

Sonic slowed his shaking and calmed down a little. His eyes still darted around, trying to gather his senses.

Zaga answered himself. "The Master Emerald. It, too, has access to infinite energy, but it can release seven times as much as a single Chaos Emerald. Therefore, it can subdue them all. With it in our possession, Mechanix, in terms of power, will only have the Black Emerald, which will merely amplify what little Chaos Energy still cycles in his body. That energy will expire and the Black Emerald will become useless, too. Then we can knock him down, disable his senses and cognition. If we keep the Master Emerald's energy steady, Mechanix's power would be sealed, and we could remove the Emeralds. Then... he is nothing but metal."

Sonic relaxed, his pain loud but quieting down. "That's right, it isn't hopeless yet. We can still... win."

Zaga finally relaxed his own glare, and looked down a road. "Yes, we built him to be powerful, but not to be unstoppable. It is disappointing, if the elders had not grabbed him for their greedy ways, this power could be used for the benefit of the world. He could have stopped the war."

Sonic sighed. He moved his legs. "The Master Emerald is protected by Knuckles, on the Floating Island. We just need to find it, although Knuckles will be a problem..."

Sonic looked at Zaga. "He's an echidna, like you. Maybe even your descendant. He's been trying to fight me, though, thinking I'm violating some sacred law by entering the ruins of your civilization and fighting Mechanix. He's a bit stubborn, but if you talk to him I'm sure he'll turn around."

Zaga walked down the pavement a bit, looking far down the road. "A floating island? So my people really became that advanced again... Another ally will be useful. Much more useful than the people here."

Sonic, trailing Zaga, sped up and moved to Zaga's side. "What? What about the people here?"

"Like you were, they are obsessed with fighting that Robotnik. They did not believe you when you said he died, did they?"

"No..." Sonic answered, thinking about Tails and the cold eyes that stared at him.

"They are losing touch with reality. Mechanix is clearly the stronger threat. You know that first-hand."

Sonic remembered the enormous beam that destroyed the Eraser Egg. "That's true."

Zaga nodded, and continued. "Yes, he-"

He was cut off suddenly by shouts and bursts of machine gun fire. Sonic heard a high-pitched squealing, coming closer and closer. Suddenly, an explosion tore up the road only some meters before him. He held his arm over his head as he turned and ran back to the corner. Zaga quickly joined him.

He looked over to the shed, where troops were picking up weapons and ammunition and running down the street. They hided behind barriers of fallen concrete and shop entrances. They peeked around the corners, letting lose bullets and rockets. He heard men and women yell out orders and warnings at various pitches. In the din, Sonic could barely recognize Tails' voice, meshed in with all the others. Sonic leaned over the side, and saw amidst rising smoke and fires an encroaching force of large robots, armed with Gatling guns and missile packs. Their red and yellow eyes pierced the gray and black cloak before them. Their fearsome appearance dazed Sonic, but then he saw Egg S-Robos burst through the smoke, flying at high speeds towards their encampment. They were shot down as they flew by, crashing and tumbling across the asphalt in large fireballs. Rings glowed inside and some animals crawled their way out.

"Sonic, we need to move," Zaga warned.

Sonic didn't respond, watching as the men and women fired on relentlessly, their faces determined and immovable.

"Sonic!" Zaga shouted and grabbed him. He turned around, surprised, but took a step back when he saw behind Zaga, down the road. Another squad of robots was advancing, with several Egg A-Robos in their ranks. They began firing the missiles, and Sonic heard shouts behind him. Before the rockets even landed, bullets were dashing by and through some of them as additional forces reinforced that side. Sonic, realizing his cover was now lost, looked at Zaga, and quickly gained composure. He looked down the smoky street, and before he thought twice, he began running.

.

**Grand City** [Act 5] (6/26)

The level will be similar to the first half of Act 3, however the enemies will be more sparse and more powerful. Sonic will be running through the ruins of fallen buildings, climbing broken cement walls and wall jumping between steel framework or dodging in and out of the craters in the streets below. Halfway through, the road will duck underground into semi-lighted tunnels. Sonic will need to jump and roll fast to avoid the traps and barriers set up by Robotnik's forces. He will run into a single Egg T-Robo on his way.

He will come across two new types of Egg Robos, first being the Egg Gunman-Robos or G-Robos,

- which will lock-on Sonic and fire burst after burst of rapid machine gun fire.

- They may also lob grenades which will have a moderately large blast radius,

- and if Sonic is close they will retreat step by step backwards while constantly firing.

One hit will dispatch a single one.

.

The other type is the Egg Rocket-Robos or R-Robos, which carry a large bazooka and a square backpack-like launcher that carries many tiny missiles.

- They will attack by slowly preparing and aiming a rocket, then firing it in a straight line. It makes a large explosion which Sonic must take care to avoid, and it will cause a small and dwindling fire.

- Additionally, they will let loose a few dozen of their small missiles which will land somewhere near Sonic's location at high speeds.

- If Sonic gets too close, they will pull out a pistol and fire a bullet every three seconds.

Four hits will defeat them.

.

At the end, Sonic will come to a main street with several small barriers with three to six robots behind them. Behind Sonic will be a collection of people who will fire to cover him. Although unlikely, if twenty bullets hit a robot, it will be destroyed. A single bullet will daze a robot for about a quarter second. After that, there will be a long expanse of road free of enemies. Once Sonic reaches here, he'll hear something large thump into the ground slowly, and wait. Coming from before him is three-story tall robot!

.

[Act 5 Boss]

The walker has thick legs that connect large, circular feet to an ellipsoidal body that carries several large weapons. It has:

- a Gatling gun,

- a lock-on laser gun,

- and taser wires that will shock Sonic if he touches any part of it including the cord.

- It may also drop a few bombs that Sonic will have to hide between as they explode to avoid the splash damage.

While Sonic avoids getting hit, the people will shoot at its underside. In the time it takes for a few rounds of using its weapons to finish, its underside will break open and reveal an engine hidden inside a cage of iron, glass, and electronics. Sonic will need to time a wall jump off of the moving legs in order to reach it and hit it. After the time it takes Sonic to make three hits, a door will shut over the opening. After eight hits, it will break and erupt, blowing up the robot's body. The legs will fall down and Sonic wins.

.

[Act 6]

Sonic will run on main street for a short while before a bomb rips open the street, forcing Sonic to jump into the sewers below. The main tunnels, with pipes overhead and cement paths sometimes interrupted by a puddle of sludge that is dangerous to touch, are mostly straight although they may be slightly angled. They may lead into narrow tunnels that Sonic can only fit through as a spinball that are angled either straight or at a sharp angle downwards (or even vertical). There are also larger areas where the moving sludge opens up into a large basin, where Sonic must jump over floating platforms or run overhead on catwalks. These basins may be of many type of shapes, with some being long vertical shafts where a waterfall of muck will rush forth, requiring Sonic to have precise timing. Sometimes the pipes will break open, releasing a dangerous flood that will chase Sonic down.

The sewers may connect to some basements which tend to be dark and the place for robot ambushes. They may be simple underground storage areas, to eerie condemned cement cellars, to broken-into laboratories with busted security. At the end, Sonic will enter the bottom room of a factory, with a floor of metal platforms above and machines in his way. The room is dark. Before Sonic can continue, a bullet rings across the room and he jumps just in time.

.

[Act 6 Boss]

Hiding in the shadows is a mysterious enemy that Sonic will later learn is a Egg Commando-Robo. Sonic will need to run through the room and find the robot to attack. However, the C-Robo will not stay still and if Sonic gets too close, he will move in the opposite direction.

- He will aim at Sonic with a rifle, a laser dot marking his current target. Sonic can estimate where he is from where the laser rests on his body as he moves in the room, and strike a quick attack.

If Sonic can hit the C-Robo once, he will throw a flashbang. As Sonic's vision and hearing come back, the robot will have set several bright timed bombs around the room. They each have three minutes, which will tick down. If that time is up, they will all explode, killing both of them. Otherwise, Sonic will have to fight quickly.

- The C-Robo will now attack from afar using sub-machine guns

- and accurately thrown grenades.

- In close combat, the Egg Robo will make slow, but heavy attacks that will lead into dangerous combos.

- It might also take out a knife to slightly expand its range, while losing some speed. Sonic can hit it in these close-range exchanges. It will then make a hasty retreat and reload, to attack again.

After eight hits in total, the C-Robo will fall. The bombs will then disable.

.

Running further on, Sonic will come to a staircase that leads into a large garage. There, he'll find several people around various vehicles. Noticing him, one of them walks up and briefs Sonic. "You're here, then. We've been able to push Robotnik out of most of our streets, but we have been getting reports of a large force approaching from beyond the volcano. If we push through their lines, we'll be able to find his base and take him out! Right now we're just about to head out! Sonic, hop on and you'll be able to rest."

Sonic nods in agreement and jumps into the back of a truck and the rest of the minutemen get into the other vehicles and they all drive off.

.

**Wild Road** [Act 1] (6/27)

The cars will speed through the city and exit it, taking an on-ramp down a broken, cracked highway. Sonic will just need to sit still for a while until the caravan enters a long field overlooking the sea. Here, the cars will screech to a halt as they reach a roadblock and an ambush. Sonic will jump out, helping with the fight as he can, and move on by foot. The road may diverge, such as a bridge being broken, a tunnel or storm water pipe being open for Sonic to enter, or a hill that Sonic will have to climb over. While he runs forward, he will fight thick amounts of robots in waves. Sonic will also enter an area that is similar to Blue Hill Zone, except with much sharper changes in elevation and mostly orange-colored flora. Near the end, Sonic will move onto ledges that stand precipitously over sharp crags and strong waves below, spelling instant death should he fall. They'll reach to the underside of a bridge, where Sonic will dash on to and across the metal pathway and catwalks below the road.

.

Halfway through, a red blur will knock him off from behind, and he'll just barely catch himself on the tall wall of a large supporting column. Sliding down to the island holding it, he'll be confronted by none other than Knuckles.

"You've been gone a long time, Sonic, but now I'm going to finish this. You violated my sacred lands and spat all over my honor like the cocky punk you are," he started off steaming.

"Wait, Knuckles!" Sonic urged. "It was all to stop either Robotnik or Mechanix. I didn't ruin anything! His robots did!"

Knuckles pointed at Sonic bluntly with his mitts. "I don't care! You intruded anyway. You also have no right to fight Mechanix. Who do you think you are, some omniscient arbiter of justice?! Mechanix is a living device that can be used for the good of all, and just because Robotnik had his paws on him..."

Knuckles bared his teeth, a rough growl held in his undertones. "My ancestors worshiped him! Regardless of what he actually did, he, the Ultimate Being, created a tradition... created a society based around his very existence! His design advanced civilization. It's because of him we have the Chaos Emeralds!"

Sonic was surprised. "How did you know-"

"Enough!" Knuckles shouted, infuriated by Sonic's ignorance. "You fool! Mechanix created the world! He was sealed away so that nobody could corrupt his grace and purity. Of course, Robotnik did anyway. I have a bigger bone to pick with him..."

Knuckles threw his arm in a wide swing to his side. "Mechanix is the only connection to my people. The only yet-living connection. The ruins that hide in this world are all a testament to him. I know. I have traveled the world and saw them myself."

Sonic looked at Knuckles, stunned by his sudden change in emotion. His voice jumped in pitch, almost like he's trying to hold something in. "I was born without parents, Sonic. Without a family. I had to live... no, I had to _survive_ on my own. I didn't have any friends. I... didn't have anyone." He breathed in.

Sonic saw something glint in his eyes. He lost his own breath. Knuckles was always composed.

"I had to be lonely for years, for my entire childhood. All I knew was to protect the Master Emerald. That was all I remember. That was all I knew! I didn't have anyone to help me, anyone to even talk to me. All I had were the ruins. They were the only thing I could relate to. They told me who I was..."

He paused. Sonic held his breath. Knuckles glared at Sonic, and suddenly yelled. "You don't have any right! To enter the most sacred of places to me, running and jumping about, saying you're trying to 'stop Robotnik'! You ignorant idiot! You...! You!"

He didn't waste any more words and charged!

.

[Act 1 Boss]

- Knuckles will punch,

- glide,

- and spindash.

- He still has his sliding punch,

- the knock-out uppercut,

- and the sudden drop-punch.

- He can also climb up the nearby column, and when high enough, he'll drop down for a megaton punch that will split open the ground and send shrapnel that Sonic will need to dodge.

- He could also punch the ground to send a shock wave of earth that will knock Sonic into the air.

After twelve hits, he will punch the ground to the side with such force that a giant wall of rock will jut up besides him, cutting the battlefield by three-quarters. Sonic will not be able to jump over it, leaving him to be stuck in either the small or larger arena. Knuckles will attack as normally thereafter, although the smaller space will make it more difficult to avoid him. Four more hits will defeat him.

.

Knuckles collapses. He doesn't move. Sonic, slowly regaining his lost breath, watches him carefully. After a minute, Sonic relaxes but keeps his distance.

"Mechanix has every Chaos Emerald and the Black Emerald, which I assume you know what it is. Even in my Super form, I couldn't even touch him. He has too much power, and whatever he wants to do, he can do without restraint, now. Robotnik doesn't control him anymore... Whatever is in the deep recesses of his mind will come out, from the time he destroyed your people in the ancient past, and we will all be victim to his desires yet again. Before he does, now...it's time to end his influence in our world's history."

Knuckles didn't move. Sonic only spared him a few seconds of his sight, and he dashed up the column above him. Back on the bridge, Zaga catches up with him.

"Sonic, Tails and his forces have already progressed past the bridge. They have given me this device..." he said, pulling a radio out from his cloak.

"So they want our help. Even so, Mechanix is more important," Sonic declared. He didn't look down, at Knuckles, who still laid at the bottom of the bridge.

Zaga looked at him for a moment, and put the radio back. "We must hurry."

Without any more words, they continued on.

.

[Act 2]

Now with Zaga following, Sonic will have backup when he's attacked. Zaga will attack with the same techniques as in his fight with Sonic, and will target whoever is closest to him that he is not already fighting. Robots will attack in higher frequencies and larger numbers, but Sonic will be able to clear them if he simply jumps or rolls through them, letting Zaga decimate the rest.

At the halfway point of the bridge, Sonic can enter a cement column, climb the internal chamber, and exit out at the top of the suspension bridge. Sliding down the cables, Sonic will start at full speed and will end up on running down the road. The road will finish over the bridge, roll over hills, and in the later parts, will enter longer and longer lit tunnels. As he moves on, he'll eventually run across groups of Egg Robos. He'll even have an Egg T-Robo chase him from behind, of which he can let Zaga attack, or wait until the T-Robo tries to hover and crush him to fall behind and attack.

Unlike before, the road is still intact and Sonic will have no obstacles besides enemies to deal with. He'll move farther away from the ocean and uphill, through a long plain, and eventually into the mountains.

.

At the end, he'll come to the top of a ledge overlooking a valley, where he is greeted with an explosion of the sounds of a battle. Pockets of soldiers shot across fields and trees at thousands of Robotnik's robots. Fireballs burst out of the ground as rockets were volleyed at each other. Zaga catches up, but Sonic quickly turns around.

"We won't be able to get to the Floating Island from here. We need to get to a higher vista and see if we can find it. If it's not in view, we'll need to find a plane – a flying vehicle."

Zaga agrees, "Yes, we must seek it out quickly and not involve ourselves in this dispute. Time is of the essence."

They leave the road, climbing the mountainside, when Sonic catches a glimpse of Robotnik's Egg-o-Matic in the distance, between trees. He quickly dashed towards it without thinking, but upon reaching the area, it was gone. Looking around, he sees it again, and sprints towards it again. So on it goes, until he comes to the flat, treeless summit. He sees it, hovering in the middle, facing away.

"Robotnik! So you've survived. I won't let you off easy just because you were ripped apart by Mechanix. You-"

The Egg-o-Matic had turned around, showing that its pilot was just another Egg Robo. Before Sonic could react, more Egg-o-Matics arrived from the trees, quickly surrounding him. Zaga managed to reach him just as ones came in, fitted with weaponry and machinery.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

Sonic will have the aid of Zaga as he takes on the onslaught of Egg-o-Matics. They will attack two at a time, and each will take four hits before exploding apart. As soon as one is defeated, it will quickly be replaced by the next in line. There are several types of vehicles they'll drive:

- the first being essentially the drill truck from _Emerald Hill Zone_'s boss from _Sonic 2_,

- the second being a floating ship that drops bombs and occasionally fires a 5-second laser,

- the third being like _Angel Island Zone_'s second boss from _Sonic 3_; that is bydisappearing with a cloaking device,

- the fourth being a slow moving Egg-o-Matic inside a spiked wheel with a single opening where Sonic must attack,

- and the last being the original Egg-o-Matic which obtained a rotating laser cannon that fires rapidly many slow-moving beams of energy at Sonic's position. After a single hit, it will escape, but with eight hits it will be destroyed too.

The order of attack is as such:

1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 2, 5, 1, 3, 1, 3, 5, 2, 3, 4, 1, 5, 3, 4, 2, 1, 5, 3, 3, 4, 2, 5, 2, 1, 3, 5, 4, 2, 5

.

After they were all defeated, Sonic looks at all of the burning wreckages of Robotnik's favorite vehicle. The smoke coiled into a giant miasma floating into the sky, the rays of the sun slowly being stuffed out. Over the crackling and fizzing of the searing metal, the rapid pops of machine gun fire and dull pounds of explosions returned to his ears. He looked to Zaga.

"Let's go."

**Misty Mountains** [Act 1] (6/28)

Sonic will do a lot of uphill climbing in this act, having to use expert movement of his wall jump to climb precipitous rock cliffs and to have adept jumping skills to clear wide, fatally deep chasms. As he climbs, Robotnik's robots will attack from higher up, often in hard-to-see places to ambush him. In these ambushes, he may be faced by particularly many or strong robots, such as a platoon of 8 Egg A-Robos at once. Zaga may be able to help if he is present. However, as Sonic ascends, they will breach through the clouds which obscure the air and sometimes force Zaga to disappear into the fog, too far away to help Sonic. Occasionally, between ambushes, there will be sounds of shuffling grass and some bouncing pebbles. Each new time from that point that he hears them, there will be a louder sound of quickly sliding metal. At its loudest volume, a shadow will appear from one side of Sonic, and within half a second strike him and promptly leave before Sonic can attack back. If he has quick enough reflexes, he can avoid him. If Zaga is with Sonic, he will yell out in warning before it attacks. Finally, Sonic will come across the entrance to some ancient, crumbled stone ruins, covered in vines and undergrowth, sitting somewhere across the top of a cloudy rift. However, a statue of a sitting humanoid figure blocks the entry path into the inside of the ruins.

.

Zaga approaches the ruins. "This seems to be some type of Anazze rebel stronghold. I have not thought one would be here, but that expresses how covert they are... We must enter."

Sonic looks around, and noticing the sitting figure, asks, "How do we move that? I can't spindash through something that thick."

Zaga turned to observe it, but quickly said, "Simply, we repeatedly smash it."

Sonic sighed and walked toward it with Zaga, but he quickly bursts alert when the stones in the figure jump. "It's alive! No, it must be powered by Dark Stones, right?"

Zaga was startled, and after a brief moment of silence he replied, "No, this place is before the use of Dark Stones!"

"What?!" Sonic gaped at Zaga, when the figure's legs and back bended forward. They both glared back at it as it stood upright. Caught on the entire hill's air was stone grinding, wood creaking and rotating, and rope tightening and bending.

"This thing shouldn't be moving!" Zaga yelled to Sonic, but before Sonic could respond, the statue's limbs bended again and rather quickly moved towards them.

"It's coming!" Sonic snapped into a fighting position.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

The figure is composed of curved helices segmented by open holes at the joints where the inner wood-and-ropework is revealed. It is tall enough for Sonic to just barely leap over.

- When it is near, it will attack by leaning forward and rotating its arms in a wide circle.

Sonic can hit it anywhere, but it will slightly crack its stone body only. As the battle goes on, it will slowly gain speed. When it is at a running pace, it will start performing acrobatics to attack.

- It may turn into a cartwheel that it can sustain from one side of the ledge to the other,

- somersault into a front or back flip,

- simply handstand (and stop suddenly),

- perform a butterfly kick (a cycling kick that moves in a helical parabola from two points),

- or make a very high jump where it lands and slides on its head, with arms and legs outstretched and spinning like a top.

Sonic will have to avoid the statue at these times and prepare a quick counterattack. Together with Zaga, the figure will need to suffer 30 hits before crumbling.

.

Looking at the debris, Sonic observes, "It doesn't seem to have any power source. It must have been manually operated."

Zaga nodded, looking at some pieces that looked like a stone door. "The pilot escaped while we didn't notice, through his back, most possibly."

Judging it defeated, they walk on into the fort. Sonic remembered what Zaga said, and asked, "You said this was before the Dark Stones were made. How did you know?"

Zaga brushed the dusty, vine-covered wall with his hand. "The architecture is too simple, even for the Anazze. They were a simple race. Their... aesthetic, was simplicity. That being, there is very little style in this place. The rocks look hewn from blunt strikes."

Sonic's eye was then caught to an alcove in the wall. Walking towards it, he sees the stones were in front of a cave wall. On further inspection, the wall had a dull colored drawing upon it, with sharp lines and simple forms. The wall had a powdery sheen to it.

"That powder on the wall is a preservative that strengthens rocks against erosion. Along with the stones retaining moisture, it seems the Anazze were holding a sample of our ancient past..."

Sonic looked to Zaga. "Before your time?"

Zaga stared wistfully at the drawing. "Long before my time." He walked onward. Sonic then realized the timeline, and yelled after him. "Then there will be nothing about Mechanix here! Why are we here?"

Only Sonic's echoed voice answered. He trudged on, into the ruins.

.

[Act 2]

The ruins run deep into the mountain, and therefore the broken stonework is often in the dark. Only narrow vents which connect to the outside give the inner sancta any light. There are other prehistoric drawings preserved, showcasing ancient hunting, gathering, dancing, clay making, and some undecipherable social and religious rituals. Fallen pillars and collapsed chambers force Sonic to make hairpin turns in the labyrinthine tunnels, filled with darkness and meandering clouds of dust. As Sonic goes on, he will come across many small rooms, some filled with mostly intact stone clubs and arrowheads. The tunnels will open onto crenelated ledges overlooking the deep valley, revealing the ruins to indeed be a mountain fortress.

In the fortress area, some hidden traps, such as collapsible floors, falling spiked ceilings, shot needles, amongst others, may or may not be released as Sonic moves by. Sonic will also be stalked by the same shadow figure from Act 1, although not at the same time as when the traps are activated. The fortress will have a shape that follows the contour of a normal cave, with vertical drops and varying slopes of ceilings and floor. At the end is a deep hallway with long stretches of columns. Interspersed between every three columns, there is a small patch of light on the floor coming through small holes far above in the ceiling. At the hallway's end is a connection to a spiral staircase.

.

As Sonic exited the stairs, he quickly threw his hand over his eyes, blinded by the light that filled the room. As his eyes adjusted, he saw a magnificently ornate room, with engravings adorning every surface, a mosaic floor and ceiling, with the walls exposing many cave paintings and many statues sitting only a few feet between each other. The light was coming in through matrices of square holes in the cavern walls, and Sonic noticed small holes leading light into the hallway below. Looking at the statues, they were surprisingly not of Mechanix. Instead, it was of an echidna, whose dreads radiated from his head like sunbeams, and who indeed looked like a mystical depiction of the sun itself. Many of the statues differed in the style they showed this echidna as, but they all paid dear respect, as could be seen by the immense detail in every creation.

"Zexagalaxius..."

Sonic looked over and saw Zaga too gazing at the works. Sonic walked over, a little miffed. "Zaga! We need to move on! At this rate, Mechanix will..."

Zaga turned and faced Sonic, making him jump. "The Anazze were allied with the Elders when this place was built. This explains their connection. I knew it would..."

Sonic was confused. "Connection? What do you mean?" Zaga had already turned away, but he continued talking.

"I will tell you the story another time. The important thing is that I know who my enemies are... and they seem to be much more than I thought..." He started walking to the other side of the room.

"You're in the future, Zaga! Our only enemy is Mechanix, now!"

Zaga paused for a moment, and turned around again. "Yes, thank you, Sonic, I was thinking about the old time, my era... We must concentrate on our task."

Sonic looked at him. He wasn't looking at Sonic, but instead at something far beyond him, almost at nothing at all. He quickly whipped around again. They walked through the hall of creations quietly for a while, both contemplating. Sonic turned his head to look outside, where he saw a ledge that enters the fresh air. He called Zaga over and they looked upon the landscape. Sonic grinned and pointed into the sky.

"There it is! The Floating Island!"

Not too far away, the enormous landmass slowly slided through the air, unaffected by wind or gravity. Long and flat glass lands and a thick forest separated the two from their goal.

"That is... the land of the Angela... Even now, I am impressed," said Zaga.

"It was floating even back then?!" Sonic was stunned.

"Yes. The Angela, instead of hiding underground like most Old Mobians, instead used the power of the Black Stones to lift their homeland far above the world."

"It forced people both into the sky and into the earth, huh? It's like that event was meant to drive people away from living normally on the surface," Sonic supposed.

Zaga did not respond.

In the corner of his eye, Sonic was pondering over a strange hair-line mark in the ground, far over in the grasslands. It wasn't there when he first came out to look. He thought he was seeing some small things coming out of it, too. In that instant, light burst from the crack, and Sonic covered his eyes, again blinded.

"Ah! What's with light today..!?"

A wave of noise then overcame the both of them, like the mountain itself was crumbling. He quickly looked back, and saw two gigantic fists reaching out of a massive chasm in the earth. Zaga, too, was staring. "Is it... the wrath of the earth god?!"

Sonic stared at Zaga, but he was nearly right. The fists grasped the sides of the abyss they created, and slowly pulled up a gargantuan mass of steel and iron. The giant looked exactly like a typical Egg Robo, except in several magnitudes the size. It slowly raised itself out of the pit where it was buried. As it did so, thousands of tiny specks of light with trailing smoke shot out into the sky. They all headed in the direction of the mountains, while the giant Egg Robo was facing the Floating Island.

"Do you think...?" Sonic slowly muttered out.

Zaga made a quick glance at Sonic. "I know nothing but to move forward. We have no time to waste!"

As he spoke the last syllable, explosions shook both of them to their knees. They scanned around themselves and saw boulders being launched down from above. A mass of metal bursts through them, charging down the steep hill side. Sonic and Zaga quickly leaped off just as it broke the ledge. As they fell, they found themselves surrounded by Egg Robos!

.

[Act 2 Boss]

Charging down the hill in front of them is an Egg T-Robo, turning its cannons around and firing at both Sonic and Zaga. From behind come waves of Egg S-Robos, which will attack three at a time. While fighting, Sonic will need to avoid the oncoming rocks that would hurt him if he doesn't jump out of the way.

.

**Forever Forest** [Act 1] (6/29)

Upon defeating the robots, Sonic and Zaga will enter the forest they saw from above. The trees stood hundreds of feet tall, their branches long, thick, and winding around each other in a complex pattern of weaving. The forest stands above a swamp, mired in fog, and giant mushrooms and vines spring off the gigantic trunks into the large gaps of space that separate them. The fog is vibrantly colored by the iridescent spores and pollen that flake off the many variations of flora and fungi, giving the forest an ethereal appearance.

Sonic will start off near the swamp and have to leap across giant leaves that float across the surface, for the liquid is toxic from the minerals that cause the trees to grow so large. His path will be interrupted by Egg Robos and robots that use the vines to swing with open blades and the vertical surfaces to take a shot at Sonic. When Sonic comes across a curved root of a tree, with enough speed he can use it to run up the trunk's surface until he can land on a branch. The branches bend around each other and the trunks, allowing travel through the middle area of the forest. However, the fog is thickest here, and Sonic will need to be aware if the branch does not touch another so that he can leap to safety. In this fog, the stalking enemy from before will attack, but he will be quicker than before. Additionally, he may place bombs which will split open the branches and force Sonic to fall below. To keep from falling into the deadly muck at the bottom, Sonic should try to keep on a higher floor of branches. Some gaps between trees may not have any branches at all, forcing Sonic to rely on mushroom's caps to launch him across, or vines to swing with.

At the end of the act, Sonic will reach a particularly large tree with a trunk several ten times larger than a normal one. Vines wrap tightly around its circumference, and as Sonic runs across it, a giant robot swings down from a vine and takes a swipe at him!

.

[Act 1 Boss]

Sonic can continually run on a horizontal vine that wraps completely around the tree's massive trunk. The robot consists of a large triangular mechanical mass, with two attached segments on its sides and an engine at its behind.

- Initially, the compartments have long chains that attach it to a vine, as well as long blades that are within range of Sonic as it makes its swing by.

Sonic will need to avoid the robot at first while Zaga attacks the chains. After four hits, a chain will break. When both break, the compartments will tear out wheels which will keep it attached to the trunk.

- It will then chase Sonic from behind.

Sonic will need to keep on running until he can reach it from behind and strike the engine. After being struck, it will retreat up the trunk.

- After two hits, it will open up cannons that will fire energy blasts at Sonic while swinging and chasing him. He will need to time his jumps carefully to avoid them.

- On the third hit, it will change tactics. Wherever Sonic is, it will fire its chains at an angle to both sides of him, trapping him.

- It will fire its energy blasts, as well as waves of many smaller shots. They would be unavoidable as they cover every possible position, however Zaga will use his magic to create a small shockwave that will disable some. Sonic will need to maneuver into these small open areas and aim for the chain.

- After one is destroyed, it will immediately let out ten homing missiles that will target Sonic. He will have to run the other way until he reaches the undestroyed chain and uses his momentum to launch up it and strike the engine again. Without enough speed, he will have to avoid the missiles, which will break the second chain whether he's hit or not.

Once attacked, it will retreat for a short while. If the other chain happened to be destroyed before Sonic could climb up it, it will retreat then, too. On the next two assaults, the angle between the chains will be narrower, and Sonic will need more speed to launch up the other side.

After three more hits, or six in total, the engine will give out a small explosion, breaking off the machine's wheels. It will then fall and tear through the vine, forcing Sonic and Zaga to fall with it.

- It will launch out all of its remaining homing missiles which Zaga will quickly destroy.

- He will then attack the engine, landing another hit. After that, it will fire energy blasts, both large and small. Again Zaga will clear a small path in the small ones for Sonic to move through, but he will have to avoid the larger ones on his own. Once he's close enough, Sonic can simply spin attack into the engine, landing the final hit. Getting hit will send Sonic backwards, and he will only have somewhat less than a minute to attack before they all crash into the ground and die. The engine will explode and the chains will be jettisoned out. One will fly out and connect with a branch above, and the other will connect with the trunk, giving the two something to land on. The robot will fall far below and its fiery explosion would light up the tree even so far as where Sonic is.

.

[Act 2]

After climbing up the chain, Sonic and Zaga will make their way into the second half of the forest. The fog will only stick in the lower levels, however the branches are much curvier this time. Sonic will find himself running loop-de-loops, corkscrews, and vertical helices. The stalking enemy will still attack, but can be seen much sooner before it attacks, giving time to react and even counter-attack if quick enough. If it's attacked, it will make an even quicker retreat, giving a longer time between attacks than normal. Additionally, some of the tree trunks will have openings with many ledges and flowing roads within, as well as scalloped fungi to climb up. If he climbs up the entirety of a tree and exits, he will find himself in a level of branches where he's surrounded by gigantic leaves that obscure his view. With enough running, he'll find himself on the balcony running and leaping across the leaves themselves with a clear view of the sky and horizon. At this level he will see how far he is from the end of the forest, as well as the gigantic Egg Robo slowly walking towards the Floating Island in the distance. At the end of the act, Sonic will come to two trees that stand immediately next to each other. He will be standing on some branch at this point, as the trees rest within the swamp.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

Whichever level of branches Sonic is at, they will split open in front of him by a lightning-fast figure, forcing him into the air. He will begin falling, just as the stalker finally reveals itself. It looks like a normal Egg Robo, except with a much slimmer and more streamlined body, as well as blades attached to its arms. The Egg Killer-Robo will attack with great speed as it has been doing, dashing up and down the trees.

- It will make lightning-quick leaps at Sonic with its blades, like lasers that will cut through him. Sonic will have to avoid by quickly changing direction: wall-jumping if he is going downwards, or falling if he is going upwards.

- The Egg K-Robo will also make large crescent slashes with its blades that will be the entire width between the two trees, and may carry it up or down for a period of time (Sonic will need to avoid it or get hit).

- It will also throw bombs that will latch into the tree bark, either detonating after a certain amount of time or when Sonic gets near.

In order to attack it, Sonic and Zaga will need to corner it and attack from both directions. As Zaga will try to constantly attack it, it is up to Sonic to predict K-Robo's movement and attack precisely. Any hits that Sonic made before hand will register in this battle.

After four total hits, it will target Zaga or Sonic directly and continually chase them until it can attack, which it will do without stopping. The other must then attack, which will make it change targets.

- After four more hits, it will get below both Zaga and Sonic, then attach a cable from tree to tree and connect both its blades to it. It will then make its way upwards as K-Robo attempts to attack either and then throw them into the rotating death column. It will counter-attack any strike on it now, unless it is in mid-air. In order to defeat it before they get squished between the column and the canopy, Sonic will need to knock K-Robo directly downwards with a properly timed hit. Once he does so, it will be ripped apart and destroyed along with its wire and blades, finally crashing into the swamp and sinking in.

.

Sonic and Zaga finally exit the forest and find themselves in a flat meadow that extends for miles beyond their sight. The massive Egg Robo steps ever closer to the Floating Island, while to the left the chasm it crawled out of still spews out flying and land-based robots. They head in the direction of Grand City.

"Robotnik must have left detailed commands for his bases to attack at different times. That gigantic one seems to be another one of his Apocalypses!" Sonic observed.

Zaga agreed, "It must be a desperate attempt to get the Master Emerald for Mechanix. We must dispatch of it as well!" He began running towards it.

Sonic hesitated for a moment. "It's as if he never died..."

.

**Egg Colossus** [Act 1] (6/30)

Upon the approach through the fields of grass and flowers, the sound of its thunderous footsteps will get louder. As they enter its shadow, it will release from within itself hundreds of small robots and Egg Robos. They will scatter throughout the sky, but some will stay to surround and protect it. When they reach its foot, several times their height, they will be attacked by a slow, but steady stream of robots. Zaga heads to the other foot, leaving Sonic alone for his perilous climb. He'll have to wall-jump off the toe at its lowest point to make it on top. From there, he will need to enter the inside of the ankle through a small hole which only opens at the top of the walking arc, and as a spinball dash to the top of the knee. While the upper leg is still bent, he'll have to race up it until he enters the Egg Robo from within through the hip. Once inside, he will be surrounded by complex and dangerous moving metalworks, such as gears, chains, and open wires. He must carefully navigate the interior, avoiding the many hazards and slowly working his way upwards. After climbing five stories in this manner, he'll be able to exit through a door in the chest.

On the exterior, thin catwalks rest haphazardly on the mammoth's shell with falls of above three hundred feet. Normal Egg Robos and tiny robots that explode when Sonic's close will plague his path. Sonic must work his way around to the gigantic backpack and maneuver up its vertical crevices. When finally reaching the top of the backpack, he will need to jump across a few more catwalks until he rests on top of the Colossus' shoulders. There he can spindash down a door and enter a room full of electronics and wires, his path blocked by traps and enemies. If Sonic can pass these final obstacles, he will just need to climb up a few platforms and enter the final room in the top of the giant's head. He will find himself in a computer room, the consoles displaying various information about the giant's parameters. Standing at the controls of it all is Egg Hunter. Behind him was a holograph depicting the view of the outside world as seen by the Colossus' eyes.

.

Sonic grinned. "It's been a while! I nearly thought I had taken care of you for good!"

Egg Hunter turned around. It stared at Sonic. The only sounds were the incessant buzzing of the monitors in the room. Even the footsteps were silent.

Sonic lost his smile. "You saved me that time, on that oil rig. You sacrificed yourself. Was it Robotnik's plan for you to do that? He must have had contingency plans. But why?"

It continued to stare at him.

After being quiet for a brief moment, Sonic cracked his knuckles. "Alright, then, I'll just destroy you and get this over with! You're just another one of Robotnik's lackeys, anyway. Mindless! As if he could make anything alive."

He started running towards it. It did not move. Just as he was about to leap and rip through it, Egg Hunter held up its hand. Sonic was surprised, but threw his fist anyway. Egg Hunter grabbed it with his open hand, then used its other to toss Sonic over into the wall. Sonic collapsed onto the ground, then picked himself up and glared back at Egg Hunter, who again held up its hand. It then turned its back and walked towards a control panel. Sonic, confused, got to his feet and stayed alert. Egg Hunter did not give him notice, pressing in a variety of buttons and commands into an advanced interface. It occasionally gave sideways glances to him.

"That's enough! I'm not going to play your game!" shouted Sonic, as he raced again towards Egg Hunter. However, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the monitor change. It now took a view from the back of the Colossus' head. He saw the mountains, and in fact the flashes of light from the fighting. What particularly interested him was how the swarm of robots that were coming from the chasm were now retreating back towards it.

Sonic looked back to Egg Hunter. It stared back. "You did this?" Sonic asked. It nodded. "So... you can actually think for yourself?" Sonic asked, incredulous. It nodded again.

He didn't know what to say. Just then, Zaga entered the room. "Sonic! All of the robots are-" Steel bars slammed down in front of him. Sonic looked back to Egg Hunter, whose fist had slammed on a button. It still looked at Sonic.

"What... what is going on?" Zaga asked while trying to budge the bars. "Sonic!"

Egg Hunter then reached around its back and pulled out a gun. It aimed at Sonic. "You're a confusing soul, Egg Hunter! But your tricks won't fool me anymore. This is your end!"

.

[Act 1 Boss]

Egg Hunter's combo is now its optimum form:

- a dangerous 10-hit combo that will nearly kill Sonic,

- and it has the ability to block all of Sonic's attacks as well as occasionally counter them by grabbing and throwing Sonic across the room.

- Along with its ability to indefinitely fly, it can use its jetpack to make short dashes to evade attacks or to make a surprising strike.

- He still has his machine gun and pulse gun, which Sonic will now need to avoid by leaping over Egg Hunter or hiding behind the consoles in the room.

- He can also launch out three S-Robo-strength missiles.

Twenty hits will defeat him.

.

Egg Hunter falls to its knees, electricity buzzing around its broken body. Sonic hovered over it. "Let's end this."

Zaga shouted out, "Watch out!" Sonic just barely jumped out of the way as a rocket burst out of Egg Hunter's back. Its eyes suddenly glowed, and it adeptly moved its arm and fired at another console. As the console popped and fizzled, a voice boomed: "Self-destruct sequence initiated! T minus thirty seconds!" Sonic took a quick glance at Egg Hunter, who still rested on the floor, then dashed to the steel bars. Zaga stepped back as he tried spindashing through them, but it was no use. They looked at each other for a brief moment. Zaga, for once, had fear in his expression. He looked pleadingly at Sonic. Sonic then shouted, "Go! Get out! Escape while you can, damn it!" Zaga's eyes were stuck on Sonic as he turned his body, and then he ran back. Sonic tried spindashing again, but the steel stood strong. He panted, and didn't see Zaga anymore.

He looked back to Egg Hunter, then dashing towards him, grabbed his jetpack where its rockets were stored and tried to pry it loose. He pulled hard, then tried kicking at it, but it stuck. He paused, but realized spindashing would just be a danger. He then just kicked Egg Hunter in the head. "Shoot the damn bars, damn it! Shoot anything with your missiles!" While he did so, the intercom burst out: "T minus 20 seconds!"

Egg Hunter did not respond. Sonic then ran and leaped into a spinball towards the hologram, but could not break through. It was steel as well. He span around the room, trying to saw through the wall at different points. He broke through some consoles, but none would let through. He rolled out and bent over, holding his knees and panting. "Damn it!" He punched the wall, making a quiet, dull thud. He looked wildly around the room. He went back to the consoles and punched down buttons, pulling levers. They had no labels on them. The monitors' graphs changed, but it did nothing to tell Sonic anything.

"T minus 10 seconds!"

Sonic span through a console, and some monitors started displaying errors.

"9!"

He picked up a piece of metal and lobbed it at them, causing them to shatter and spark.

"8!"

He screamed.

"7!"

He stared at the floor, holding onto a pipe. He did not pay attention to the announcements anymore. He heard a clank, and turned around, seeing Egg Hunter feebly getting to its feet. He looked at it for a moment, then dashed towards it. It did not move. Sonic leaped and tackled it into the floor. "Damn you! You know what's going on! You can save us!" He looked at its dim globes for eyes. "No, you put us here. You put me here. You knew all along this would happen! Damn it, you knew!" He punched it, and the sound echoed across the room. Although his hand hurt, Sonic punched it again. He punched it again, and again. Blood splattered on Egg Hunter's face, from Sonic's ripping knuckles. Sonic was covered with sweat, and his limbs ached. He breathed staggeringly.

"2!"

He looked at Egg Hunter's robotic eyes again. Past the dim light, and inside all of the mechanics of the room, was him. He looked at himself, and saw his own face.

"1!"

He closed his eyes and dropped onto its body.

Within a second, fire erupted from the core of the Colossus into its head, and burst through the floor. It surrounded them, the heat licking their bodies. The inferno wrapped around the room, consuming all of the machinery like it never existed. The roar was deafening, but it was not painful. It was like the roar of a giant's exhaling. Like the Colossus itself was giving breath. Sonic opened his eyes. He saw the wall of fire, splashing across surfaces and spinning in itself. He saw fragments of metal fly through the air slowly, gliding, almost hovering in the air. He turned around, placing his feet on the ground. As soon as his foot touched the metal floor, with its rough, cerrated texture, he felt a surge of energy burst through him. For a moment, he thought he was being burnt alive. He looked at his leg, and it seemed normal. He pushed off of the metal body, his back straightening until he stood up. He could feel surges of electricity pulsing through his body in such power that it didn't seem real. He felt like he had transformed into his Super form, but he knew Mechanix had the Chaos Emeralds. Upon thinking that, images of Mechanix flashed through his head. His words echoed through his head as he recalled Robotnik being obliterated in such an awesome display of energy. He remembered the feeling of being hit himself, and his side made a dull cry in response. He then instantly remembered the Master Emerald, and he saw himself using it to seal off Mechanix's power, and he saw himself beating him down, and his body finally laid in ruins. He thought about that, Mechanix dead, and emotions surged through him. Memories flashed quicker than he could even recognize, and he closed his eyes, trying to hold onto them. Yet, just as they came, they disappeared. His mind then stayed blank, black. He slowly opened his eyes, and still saw the wall of fire rotating around the room and bursting out of a hole in the floor. "How is this possible?" Sonic thought. "I just spent hours..."

Upon thinking that word, another type of shock passed through his brain. He could palpitate his heart, beating so fast that it seemed to be an explosion itself. He felt his chest, then his hips, his legs, feet, then back to his legs, to his chest, his shoulders and neck, his face and arms, his forehead and hands, then back. A tongue of flame made a single lick in the air as he felt all this. "What is going on?" he thought.

He saw that the fire coming out of the hole had a gap, and without thinking, he rushed towards it.

.

**Fighter Flight** [Act 1] (6/31)

The entire Egg Colossus is in the process of exploding, but Sonic is able to move without caesura. After dropping through the hole, he will find himself on a platform that is slowly moving upwards. In fact, every platform around him is moving slowly in one direction or another as currents of fire rush through the entire construction. While avoiding these flames, Sonic must adeptly jump and wall-jump through the entire construct. All enemies he may face are in the process of being annihilated, so he must only worry about keeping pace so as not to slip. After making his way through the maze of flames, he'll burst through the back of the Colossus onto a bridge of shrapnel. At the end of the bridge, he will see the Tornado hovering still in mid-air, and he jumps onto it.

.

As he lands, the impact shakes the electricity out of him, and in an instant, time speeds up to normal, apparently. The plane drops and moves to avoid the deadly "bridge" that Sonic just used. The explosion rips through the Colossus, turning it into a crumbling inferno with shock waves frequently bursting out. Tails, the pilot of the Tornado, looks back and jumps when he sees Sonic. He glances at his legs, wondering what happened.

"Sonic!? How the... You were inside it?! Well, I can't complain, you helped us a lot this time!" Tails shouted back over the roar of the explosions.

"What? What did I do?" Sonic asked, still perplexed over what just happened to him.

Tails whipped the Tornado into a loop around the fire, slowing down and lowering closer to the meadow. He explains. "We found information about Robotnik's operations that were to happen concurrently with the Egg Tempest! What you just destroyed is another one of his Apocalypses, a giant battle robot he dubbed 'Egg Colossus'. It was supposed to attack Grand City, but he seems to have made an alternate plan."

The plane lowered closer to the ground and its wheels scraped the grass. Tails coolly landed it, still explaining the situation. "You stopped it for us! It would have been a threat, since it moves at the same speed as a typical Egg Robo and yet is over a hundred times the size. It seems that it also was in command of all of Robotnik's forces that attacked us after the Egg Tempest, too... since now it's destroyed, they have retreated."

Sonic looked over and saw Zaga waving from far off. He ran towards them. Sonic looked at Tails, who was smirking back calmly. He could tell he was gleaming inside. "I'm not done yet. Zaga and I, we need to get to the Floating Island. Can you fly us there?"

Tails looked at the island, which was fairly close at the Tornado's speed. The Egg Colossus was breaking apart behind them, the fire crackling and the smoke billowing into a large plume. "It's not too far away. Sure. After this, though, I must attend to my troops. We have Robotnik's forces on the run! We can secure an incredible victory if we see it through. Our battle is finally coming to an end!"

Zaga finally reached them, and Sonic beckoned him to climb on. As he clambered on, he looked back at the wreckage of the Colossus, and wondered about what had happened. Suddenly, he saw spikes of energy shoot out. They increased in number and concentrated on a vertical point, where after a brief pause a beam shot out. He saw a ball pass through this beam high into the air. Zaga and Tails both looked back at this point, the beam making a remarkable sound. Sonic looked in the air and saw, for a quick moment, the being within the energy. It was Egg Hunter, still together and alive. In a flash it burst forward, rushing towards the Floating Island. Sonic made no waste of time. "Quickly, Tails! After that!"

Tails started the engine again. While it kicked in, he looked back at Sonic. "I trust you, Sonic, even though you're really selfish." He turned back and snapped on his flight goggles. "After you finish whatever you're doing, I want you to join us! You'd be a great example for the new recruits. But really, I don't want to fight on different sides of the planet... This battle is different from before. One of us might actually die..."

The engine was at full power. He kicked in the acceleration, and the plane started to move down the meadow. Sonic looked at Egg Hunter, zooming towards the Floating Island, while thinking about Tails' words. He nodded, then looked to Tails and properly responded, "Yeah! Tails, I'll explain everything when I'm done! But I promise that I'll be with you in the end of all this."

They started to lift off and Tails laughed after a moment. He smiled without saying why. Sonic saw this, and looked back to Egg Hunter. Zaga held on in the back, silent. They closed in on the enemy!

[Act 1 Boss]

Tails will fire the Tornado's Gatling gun at Egg Hunter while Zaga sends out attacks to dispel its shield.

- At the same time, Egg Hunter will launch off missiles and plasma beams to ward them off. Tails must avoid these, especially the homing missiles and S-Robo-strength missiles to keep safe.

Once Zaga lands enough hits, the shield around Egg Hunter will disappear. When Tails' Gatling gun lands enough hits, Egg Hunter will slow down and come closer to the plane. This is where Sonic must run forward and attack him directly.

After this, Egg Hunter will get a second wind and rush forward with another energy shield, repeating his attacks. After four more hits, Egg Hunter will turn around and will target the plane directly.

- He will attack much more rapidly and in larger amounts. He will use more homing missiles, more pulse beams, and more S-Robo-strength missiles.

Using the same methods as before, four more hits can be landed on him. At this point, he will be defeated.

.

Egg Hunter bursts into flames just as they get in the Floating Island's airspace. Although mostly destroyed, it aims for a cavern within its underside and Tails follows. Using a final burst of energy, it manages to get farther ahead and lands within the darkness. Tails carefully guides the plane within the cavern, but as a matter of caution lands on the ground and slows down. It finally manages to come to a stop, when Sonic and Zaga jump off.

"This is as far as the Tornado can go... and as far as I will! Sonic, although you follow our own justice so blindly... I believe in you. Something seems strange about all of this, but I won't hold you back anymore! Come back safely!"

Sonic looks back at Tails while Zaga runs ahead after Egg Hunter. "Tails, you, too, be careful! Our battle against Robotnik isn't over yet!"

Sonic then runs ahead, leaving Tails alone in the dark, just lit by the Tornado's internal lighting. He wonders, by himself...


	8. Sonic Ballistic, Part 7

Part 7

**Underzone** [Act 1] (7/32)

Sonic will start running down the caverns, which will have sequentially more pipes exiting the walls and moving horizontally parallel to the ground. As pipes completely surround Sonic, metal scaffolding will suddenly appear, and he will quickly enter a mechanical base. Cameras on the ceiling will turn, watching him as he passes by. Monitors will show Sonic himself viewed from high and low angles as he rushes by. The long cavern will abruptly come to a dead-end due to a steel door, and if Sonic tries to move backwards, another steel door will close in front of him. In order to escape, he will need to wall-jump off either door and break through a vent in the ceiling. From there, he must spin dash through the tiny shafts, jumping whenever he has room to move vertically to an alternative route, and eventually breaking through another grate into an open area. He will enter a security room worked by standard Egg Robos, who will turn around and signal the alarm upon spotting him. As they begin to attack, Sonic should turn around and enter an elevator on the other side of the room.

The elevator exits in another mechanical shaft, and as soon as Sonic exits it, robots will be waiting for him in front of him, including mining-type robots and many types of battle robots (including Egg Robos). Sonic must break through their lines and run ahead, as now robots will constantly be seeking him out. The shaft he is in will pitch and roll, as well as split into multiple paths or annex into one as it goes deep within the Floating Island's giant rock base. As Sonic continues on, the metalwork around him will change from utility structures like pipes and scaffolding to somewhat rusty iron walls and steel girders. As he runs, he'll pass by giant storage rooms and cargo bays where large groups of robots will immediately wake as he passes by.

Occasionally the small and narrow shafts will open into a giant underground cave, with massive spires of rock in the background (akin to _Lava Reef Zone_ from _Sonic & Knuckles_). Here he needs to be wary of holes in the floor that lead to abyss, as well as the larger amount of flying robots that will attack him.

In a particularly narrow area, a loud screech will come from behind Sonic, followed by an increasingly bright white light. It is in fact a train which will crush Sonic unless he enters it through the front window. There, an Egg Robo has a bomb, which it quickly activates!

.

[Act 1 Boss]

The bomb is timed, giving Sonic 5 minutes to make it through the entire train and escape before he's caught in the deadly wreckage. Every car is filled with robots, with stronger and more sturdy Egg Robos in the back cars. The doors between each car is locked, as well, forcing Sonic to break them apart with his spindash. Once he clears each car, he'll come to the caboose which holds an Egg T-Robo! As soon as he sees it, it will start charging an attack in its cannon, and as the cars are small, Sonic has no choice but to run back to the front to avoid it. Once he does, the train will have entered a wider area, allowing Sonic to jump through the front window and then onto the roof. At this time, the energy blast will hit the bomb, forcing it to explode regardless of the time. Sonic must avoid the explosion by running back, on top of the roof, and leaping off to safety behind it. The cars will get knocked off the tracks, and as Sonic follows it, he sees it tumble in flames off the ground into the giant cave area.

.

[Act 2]

The alarm is no longer activated, allowing Sonic to run in freedom. He will go through long areas of constant movement, although he may need to jump or spindash to avoid obstacles, and in some cases need to run across the ceiling to avoid particularly tall blockages in the tunnels. The tunnels have pit stops or miniature bases where more robots will be around, and Sonic must make his way to the small security rooms (which are usually a floor above or below the entrance) to destroy the console before any robot could reactivate the alarm. If one does, Sonic will have the same amount of trouble as before, but otherwise he can move on easily. After several of these bases and lengths of tunnels, Sonic will come to a rather small door. Through the door are very compartmentalized areas separated by doors, which will slow down his pace.

Through the final door, he'll enter a shuttle with glass walls on top of rails. It will slowly move ahead, creaking and tipping dangerously on the very narrow tracks, supported by flimsy pylons. Around him is the widest cave area yet, and covering the floor are thousands of dormant robots, organized in most of the types he's seen so far. Slowly coming into view is a giant column of rock, now mostly covered with Robotnik's industrial architecture. The tram quickly changes direction and angle. It starts to move down, quickly gaining speed and as the angle increases, so does the acceleration. The tram is seemingly floating off the rails as it flies down, and just as suddenly the rails become horizontal again, knocking Sonic into the ground. The tram is still wildly racing on the path, moving through line and line of Robotnik's forces. Before Sonic can get a grip of how many there actually are, the tram will come to a stop at the base of the giant column. It will slowly enter a small closing with bright lighting, and come to a stop in the middle of it. As it waits, Sonic can just barely get a glimpse of some of the squadrons waiting silently out there. He might not notice however that mechanical arms with various tools stretching from the ceiling to inspect the vehicle. One shoots a harmless laser grid through the tram that Sonic cannot avoid, and after scanning it completely, all of the arms pause.

Suddenly, the alarm turns on again! The tram remains still, and Sonic can hear over the waw-waw a symphony of mechanical parts warming up and moving. He can see the eyes of the robots outside light up and their limbs moving around. As they finish warming up, they turn towards his exact location. They begin to move towards him. Sonic cannot break through the glass, but when the mechanical arms completely retract to their original position, the tram will suddenly burst into movement, just as an Egg Robo makes its way into the entrance.

The column's architecture has angular, sharp, threatening structures that span across rooms and floors. There are many small rooms and hallways, with large curved glass windows that give a glimpse of the research that many robots continue to work on. Before Sonic can get a proper eye to any of these rooms, the shuttle will collide with the wall, throwing him to the side. A platform beneath it will promptly lift it up through a small shaft, which will quickly open into the wide inner area of the column; an atrium with thousands of tiny glass rooms, lights, and thin, steel girders bending across the space. As he rises, he'll see a swarm of robots enter the lower rooms, trying to make their way upwards. He can see many forms of weaponry and of energy harnessed by Robotnik's advanced machines in test chambers, along with workshops where new robots are designed by other robots. He even sees roboticization capsules and storerooms of power rings. As he moves further up, other elevators in the atrium will slowly catch up to him, filled with robots. Egg Robos within shatter the windows and carefully aim their guns at Sonic. However, their elevator cars reach their highest floor first and quickly stop, making their shots, if fired, to wildly miss.

.

Before Sonic can take anything in, his own shuttle will enter a shaft and suddenly stop. The other side will open up, and Sonic will enter a two-story room with the walls completely covered in glass. The room is actually suspended like a bridge in the middle of the atrium. There are large monitors and small computers in the room, and on every monitor is a small looped replay of camera recordings of Sonic from earlier in the level. As he walks on, the recordings are also of Sonic inside the Egg Colossus, and also of him moving from plane to plane in the Egg Tempest, and on the asteroid, and in the volcano base... At the other side of the room is Egg Hunter, visibly weakened and broken, watching a screen that shows Robotnik holding a gun to Sonic's head.

Egg Hunter turns around. It does not hold a gun. The screens all turn blank, then fill with text and graphs. Sonic quickly glances around.

"Where's Zaga?" he asked threateningly, but in that instant a few screens lit up with a camera feed of Zaga running down the hallways inside the column.

Sonic hesitated. He took a step forward. "So you can understand me, right?" he asked.

Egg Hunter bowed in what Sonic assumed was a nod.

"Tell me then. Where's Robotnik? I know he survived, there's no reason why his forces would still be moving about with such intelligence. They must be led by someone to have been such a problem..."

As Sonic talked, the screens blipped and filled with various forms of data. One had a line graph, which did not move.

"He survived when I knocked him down after I destroyed his DeathEgg for the second time, and he's survived re-entry before that, too. One laser beam couldn't have killed him..."

The central screen filled with a full image of Robotnik, himself. Sonic jumped and stared at it.

"Robotnik!" he shouted. The image of the doctor flickered. His body did not move nor speak. Lining up next to him were ratios and percentages. As he tried to analyze them, the screens went blank again. Then suddenly the main screen loaded a small file with simple text on a black background. It read: "Total command administration given to subject Egg Hunter upon incapacity or destruction of subject Ivo Robotnik, project "Apocalypse" to continue on schedule."

Just as Sonic finished reading it, it blipped out again, and all of the monitors again showed camera feeds, this time from the Eraser Egg. Although fuzzy from zooming in, they kept focus on Robotnik's ship. Mechanix's beam appeared immediately, and from every angle, it can be seen to completely surround his ship. Even as the beam dissipated, Sonic could not see any remains. Some cameras veered off in possible trajectories, but they saw nothing as well. One panned on the line the beam made, and all that could be seen were bits of metal and ash spinning endlessly. Sonic watched those bits spin, but suddenly the screen blipped again, replaying the camera feed. Every monitor replayed it again and again. He looked at Egg Hunter, which did not move. He saw then that its left eye was cracked and splintered and then realized how silent the room was. The screens switched to blank again.

Sonic then noticed out of the corner of his eye the robots that were moving like a flood up the column's walls through the glass windows. They were only a few floors below him. He then turned to Egg Hunter, and noticed that the monitors were again showing something. They showed camera feeds again, but this time of the robots. Not just within the column, but in the cave around it, and in the smaller bases inside the Underzone. He saw one which showed the sky and a massive field. He saw Tails' soldiers firing and entering a giant hole in the ground where the Egg Colossus exited from. He saw the Quickened Quay and the Assimilated Asteroid, along with other bases he never would have thought existed. Before Sonic could take it in, Egg Hunter raised his hand. Every robot, in every screen, and even in his naked vision, stopped. The monitors flipped between different cameras showing different areas and different robots. They all had stopped. Egg Hunter raised his other hand, and every single robot that had a hand raised it.

"So you're in control of everything... now that Robotnik is dead."

Egg Hunter nodded.

"He's dead, then. He didn't survive? I don't believe it, he can't be dead. You've controlled everything since he's gone... but I still don't believe it!"

Egg Hunter violently threw down his hand. All of the other robots did the same, but stayed still. Every single monitor turned black. Sonic posed for battle, but Egg Hunter only turned around to the monitors. The screens were not actually black, but they were dark. They slowly got brighter, some patches faster than others. The cameras seemed to be zooming out. It was a strange mass of red and black mixed, with white sometimes visible. There were also some clearly mechanical parts, bent and broken, that came from the mass. One monitor switched to a steady shot from a suspended position, and it covered several robots in a desert area that surrounded a large crater. Around it were smaller craters, and some of the shrapnel were visible. Sonic suddenly felt a pang in his stomach, instantly recognizing the pieces of Robotnik's ship. He looked to the other feeds, fully zoomed out, showing the cockpit. He recognized glass at the top of the mass shown. He froze.

The screens blanked out again. Sonic didn't jump when the door opened and Zaga entered the room. He looked to Sonic.

"Sonic, all of the mechanical soldiers have stopped moving. We must move onwards with our path cut out simple for us."

Sonic didn't respond. He didn't move.

"You look pale, comrade..." turning to Egg Hunter, he raised his hand. "Did this broken toy pull out a cheap shot? I will destroy it now."

"No," Sonic interjected. He looked up, but he wasn't looking at either of them.

"Egg Hunter, you can't speak, but you can listen and understand... and think for yourself. Can't you?"

It made its bowing nod.

"You saved my life although you tried to kill me before... directing me to Robotnik, back at that oil rig. You stopped the Egg Colossus once I showed up, and here, you..."

It had already raised its hand again, and the monitors were lit up with the many robots still stopped. He then swooped his hand into a fist, to the left part of his chest, and all of the robots jerked. They slowly moved to the ground, some folding into themselves, others simply lying straight down. Their eyes dimmed to black, and their weapons became concealed. They were dormant again.

Egg Hunter's hand opened, and suddenly every single robot's chest broke open. There were bursts of sparks and smoke, and shooting out of them were rings, black stones, and animals. Every single robot was being destroyed, their cores being released. The monitors flipped through feed by feed, showing a robot's destruction then flipping to another camera. He saw hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of robots instantly being defeated...

Even Zaga could not speak. Sonic could not hold back any longer. He shouted out, "Why!? Egg Hunter, why are you doing all of this? You follow Robotnik and fight me, yet you go against his final plans?!"

Zaga looked to Sonic and shouted, "Magical creations have no free will! This is a post-humous guise by Robotnik! Don't be fooled, Sonic!"

Sonic replied, "No... this isn't a normal robot. Why does Robotnik have a robot that acts so absurdly? Why would he make something that would act against him? This robot has a soul... He's alive like you and me."

"But why? Egg Hunter, you must always stand by his side... you must know how much of a demon he is..."

Egg Hunter was still facing the other way, only the large screen lit up. In it was Robotnik, wearing conventional clothes and glasses. He was sitting down on a metal chair. Around him was a perfectly clean and orderly room. A bookshelf with giant tomes of reference organized by color stood behind him, and to his side was a table and some research equipment upon it.

His hand was holding his head, his other arm laying on the desk in front of him. The camera rotated around him, showing his face covered in shadow. There was only one light in the room, hanging above him, dim and faded.

"Egg Catcher..."

The camera pitched down. It stared obediently at Robotnik. "You were my masterpiece of Artificial Intelligence... you have perfect language acquisition, the ability to create new and unique actions based on interpretations of the actions you already know, the ability to learn and grow..."

"You think, you reflect. You have thousands of dynamic structures where information is processed, actions memorized, events and objects recognized, associations made..."

His head slipped further down into his open hand, his face bathed in darkness, looking down to the table.

"You respond to stimuli with emotions, which fuel your desire. You exist consciously; you know that yourself. And yet you listen to me. You are perfection. The realization of artificial free will..."

He gave a weak laugh. "And my unobstructed control of that free will."

He dropped his hand and looked up. "Therefore you will understand my dilemma more accurately than even I can right now. You will know the answer. Only you."

He looked straight into the camera. "Yesterday, I was overcome with depression and fear. Of the volunteers who sought to be the first roboticized citizens, where their minds would be perfectly safely transplanted into the bodies I have created, every single one-"

He stopped, and for a moment, if one stares at his face without moving, it seemed to cease being human. It was an assembly of shapes cast by the dim light in the black room, being meaningless and composed artlessly. The shapes were foreign, alien. At that brief moment, something, without knowing what it was, completely stopped within that room.

"There was always a chance that consciousness would not be fully transferred. I sequentially tested slow transferrals of memories by digital copying, duplicating the exact brain structure, the same chemicals... and to carry them, their actual conscious perceptions through non-cybernetic structures... to occupy a robotic vessel, to have essentially teleported a living, conscious being! They returned back to their original bodies, of course. I knew they would. I knew everything that could go wrong. But, for some reason...this time, to do everything at once..."

He stopped again. His face lost meaning. It looked exactly the same from before. The shapes were uncanny.

"At 1620, all of the monitors displayed a quick dropping out of brain activity. Some of the subjects just ceased moving. For five minutes, they were sprightly. EEG readings dropped dramatically, indicating catastrophic failure. They talked to me, their voice, copied sample by sample from their original articulatory system as an exact replica. They were exhilarated, having a virtual interface with which to interact with their own mind... being able to be entertained in thousands of subjective hours, and being able to jump for joy... ten times the height they normally could reach... They found pure joy, Egg Catcher..."

He stopped. Things completely lost sense. It wasn't that the camera had not moved, and that neither did Robotnik, but it was something more subtle that was missing.

"They died. Less than an hour in... Their consciousnesses were not based on anything but copies, and they could not re-root. The failure rate amongst all 1,000 subjects was... 100%..."

"I had no idea... I tested and tested and made trial after trial... I was absolutely sure that there would be no errors... I've mastered the fields of science and engineering, knowing intimately the realms of psychology and computer science. I knew... I knew!"

He stopped. His voice was heavy and slow, his breaths clearly audible. But his face did not move particularly, staying perfectly placid. The shapes of his face reflected nothing. They had no meaning at all.

His head moved slightly upwards, and meaning was restored. Light flooded the top of his face, revealing his pale skin and dark, sunken eyes. His skin had a strange texture, and sweated. His voice was quickening. His pitch shifted. Robotnik was petrified. "They are going to know by morning that something went wrong. They will find them all dead. This will be a massacre, and I am going to be hunted to death."

He looked back at the camera, completely motionless from fear. "They're going to kill me, Egg Catcher. There is nothing that will stop them. I will be seen as an international terrorist, they will judge me as a military threat and launch armies to kill me. I don't want to die... I have technology to solve their problems. I can rectify the consciousness transfer problem, too! I'm already thinking about it! I can finally end conflict on this world! They're going to kill me, anyway. Only I know logic in this world..."

The light bulb's reflection rushed across his glasses like a fireball while he turned his head down again. He took in a breath.

"I never meant to kill a thousand people... I want to save people, but in just one error... one, unacceptable error... I know what's good for this world, but the world will find some way to destroy me. They will never forgive me. I can't live in the same world as these people anymore... I always knew I would never fit... but my science must go on..."

Robotnik sunk back into darkness, his hand cradling his head. "Do I accept death? For the people I work for, whose world of peace I now shattered by a simple error... Do I escape? For technology that would bring their world out of conflict and poverty? As a genius, I can only see the path already ahead of my eyes... Egg Catcher... by now, you must know the true answer."

The camera stopped looking at Robotnik, having lost focus to some distant, unseen object. "Never tell me the truth, no matter how obvious it is, Egg Catcher. I designed you to not speak for a reason. No matter what I do or what ends up happening... don't stop me, Egg Catcher, never try to stop me... this civilization will never get a second chance to break the cycle..."

The screen blanked out.

Sonic looked at Egg Hunter. "So you must be... one of his first robots..."

Egg Hunter didn't turn around, looking at the monitors. Zaga looked back to Sonic. Sonic did not look at anything. His face was blank, his limbs frozen. Zaga entreated him, "Sonic, Robotnik is dead, his armies destroyed. You need to move on! The active threat, the one that has always been the most important, is Mechanix! We must stop Mechanix!"

Sonic did not respond.

"Sonic!"

He grabbed him and shook him. "Fool! Even if Robotnik actually was a good soul in the past, he still killed too many people. Indeed, since he has killed in the past, it shows his natural proclivity for villainy and baseness. Don't let him change your mind! This all must be a trick!"

Sonic looked towards Zaga.

Zaga glared back. "You need to snap out of it! We must get the Master Emerald."

Sonic suddenly rushed into Zaga and grabbed him at the shoulders. He shouted, "I never wanted Robotnik to **die**! Even if he killed all of those people, he shouldn't be condemned to death! Nobody deserves death!"

Zaga struck his arms off with the back of his hands. "You wish that madman lives still?!"

"I may have wanted him to die before, but I have seen people die before me in this battle... no matter how much anger would impassion me to kill... I would always remember the dead..."

Sonic looked away and his voice weakened "I don't want anyone to die, anymore..."

Zaga kept silent. He glimpsed at Egg Hunter, who stared still at the empty screens. "You! False warrior. Your master created this place because it's close to the Master Emerald, am I correct?"

The robot turned its head and nodded. Zaga shot a glance at Sonic, then continued, "I can see how intelligent he is, so there must be a reason he has not acquired it himself. He does not have it, right?"

It nodded again. Sonic looked up and added, "He could be lying. He's loyal to Robotnik!"

Zaga snapped back, "Of course he's lying! However, I can still have a conversation with him, unlike with you!"

He fully turned around and faced Sonic. "Do not sit and weep, foolish boy! As men, we cannot let our emotions control our spirit and morale. Regardless of what has happened, action must be taken! And now, we must take action!"

As he finished that word, a sensation flooded Sonic's body. He felt an incredible energy surge through his body, and he looks down to observe it. He notices how he's floating above the ground, and he saw his shadow sprawled out on the floor. His arms and legs, though, were stretched out flat, and he just realized he felt the sensation of Zaga's skin on his bare palms. He then felt a tug on his entire body to the right, and realized that he was also spinning. He gave in to the gentle pull and found himself looking up. Why had time suddenly slowed down? He looked at Egg Hunter, who had his gun drawn for some reason. He looked back to where he was and saw a small, gossamer ball that was quickly growing brighter. He then saw hairline cracks bolt through the windows around the room, bending and branching apart until they created a very complex tessellation of glass panes. The panes glided off each other, into the room, some faster than others, some cracking in the air. As he noticed this, he felt his back touch and begin to slide across the smooth floor. He then saw a figure out of the corner of his eye, and within a second it had appeared before him. The ball had grown to bright to look at, and this is where the figure occupied when it had stopped moving. Sonic easily registered the body as a cloud of glass shards hovered around his head. It was Mechanix.

Suddenly, pain shot through his back as he collided with the wall. The glass fell to the floor and slid, most of it falling out of the room and down the atrium. Zaga struggled to his feet, his eyes glued on Sonic. Mechanix stared at Sonic intently. A screech burst out and Sonic could barely see one of Egg Hunter's heavy missiles before it hit Mechanix. Fire burst and surrounded him, spreading out towards the walls. Sonic then heard a large crash and saw blue in his eye's side. With one foot on the ground, he turned and saw Egg Hunter's body lying amongst the consoles and monitors, arcs of electricity making the area flash with blinding light.

"Mechanix," Sonic stated as he stood up. The clouds of smoke, then billowing, suddenly blasted to the edges of the room. Mechanix was surrounded by light that quickly dissipated.

"Sonic," Mechanix responded, "I did not think you would survive."

He did not move. Sonic kept on guard, but he heard creaking metal. He could feel the rising danger in the room.

Mechanix spoke calmly. "It was a long way coming to this place. I checked the entire world for the place to revive Old Mobius. I checked the doctor's information in his old bases, yet for some reason every single one had this place in secret. I checked all of the Old Mobian ruins of this world in order to find the Phoenix Point..."

Zaga shouted out, "No!" He stepped forward and pointed at him. "You intend to desecrate that holy grave, you bastard!"

Just then, a blast rang out. Mechanix turned and saw Egg Hunter, his body chassis fractured and his right arm non-functional. "Vile puppet!" he declared as he threw out his hand. There was a flash, and Egg Hunter's body slid and his arm, legs, and most of his body scattered in tiny pieces across the floor.

"Ka'ralei was not the only city made underground to escape the event which cleaned the world of life. There were many more, dug further underground, with their people still alive by means of the Black Rocks they used to perpetuate energy. Holding the Black Emerald, I know where they are and can receive and transmit energy between them. I just need the ability to control the Chaos Emeralds..."

Mechanix stepped towards the two. "If I gain that power with the energy source on this island, I will immediately take control of all Old Mobian machinery. New Mobius will be destroyed unless you return to your people and tell them to retreat far away. Far, far away from us. I urge you to do this, for I have no desire to kill you."

Zaga carefully asked Mechanix, "You fool, I am an Old Mobian, who was freed by Sonic. If you wish to serve Old Mobius, then obey me and cease!"

Sonic noticed something about Mechanix, having stared at him. His body glowed slightly like light was being naturally released from his armor. Yet, his eyes did not glow at all and seemed rather cold and dim in comparison. Suddenly, they stared back at him.

"No, I obey the will of Old Mobius as dictated by the Leaders, who wished for me to cleanse the world of defilements and those which would oppose our sacred race, those who were directly descended from Zexagalaxius. They wish for me to bring the world to the state when the ancient god stood alive at the front of all of our descendants. The state in which only Old Mobius stands, in which any Old Mobian can live anywhere on this planet."

"I will completely destroy this new world, which has been corrupted into destruction and war as Robotnik has so easily demonstrated. Those who do not escape the wrath of the true Zexakal shall die."

Zaga turned to Sonic, who was staring again, this time at Egg Hunter, whose hand firmly grasped Mechanix's ankle. It shuddered severely, with a large puddle of oil leading from the wall and electricity sparking within him. His intact eye was flickering. Mechanix bent over and grabbed it.

"No! Stop!" Sonic shouted out suddenly and raced towards them.

"Begone!"

An explosion ripped through Egg Hunter, tearing metal off metal. Sonic had closed his eyes so that he wouldn't see the pieces scatter like broken plastic. He was still running, however, and he raised his arm to strike.

He then heard Zaga shout his name, and felt the entire world rush ahead from behind him. His back slammed against a flat wall, and he suddenly lost his breath. He buckled over, and realized he was punched in the stomach. He tried to breathe, but air wouldn't flow in or out. There was something blocking his throat, something he tried to swallow but couldn't. His voice was shallow, heavily suppressed by the intense pain.

Zaga yelled towards Mechanix, "I am one of your creators, Mechanix! Heed me! The Leaders only wanted you to kill their enemies, they did not want you simply to remove the Chaos Energy from the world, as we did!"

Mechanix calmly replied, "I recall every face I have seen, but my memory banks have no information on you. I cannot trust you."

Sonic made it on his feet again. As he was, he noticed the creaking being much louder. Zaga cocked his head, so Sonic thought he heard it, too.

Mechanix looked at the two. "You are both becoming increasingly irrational. I advise you again to assist your kin in escaping. They will need to know where to go when the world around them splits apart, as it shall."

The creaking came from the other side of the room, now. Sonic was hardly breathing, his face flush with blood and tears from trying to gasp for air.

"I determined that you would not listen to me, despite hoping against it. There is reason for the destruction I have committed, as it is for the benefit of the world. Your deaths shall be with good reason."

Suddenly, Mechanix disappeared. The floor then developed a massive tremor, and the air was filled with sudden pops, cracks, and rips. The floor shifted downwards, and everything started to slide.

"Sonic!" Zaga called out and threw out his arm. Sonic grabbed onto it with both of his own and held tightly. Zaga ran towards the broken glass walls and leaped, just as the floor caved in on itself and as the steel girders that supported the room collapsed. The entire suspended area ripped off the walls and fell. Zaga used his powers to break the window in front of him, and he and Sonic tumbled into the spiral hallway which led up the atrium. Zaga quickly got to his feet, but Sonic stayed on the ground.

"Boy! Stand up, we need your speed if we want to reach the Master Emerald first!" Zaga shouted.

Sonic grunted and managed to stand. He breathed deeply for a few seconds, then regained his composure and ran ahead of Zaga. They ran to the top of the atrium, where a door leading into a rocky cavern was blown off its hinges. It opened into a cavern with crystals covering every surface. Far ahead, there is a pinprick of light at the end of the deep tunnel.

.

**Hidden Palace** [Act 1] (7/33)

_Starting this stage, there is a time limit to get the Master Emerald before Mechanix in 15 minutes. Whatever time passes continues to count down in the next stage, too. If Sonic does not make the time, he will irrevocably fail. _

Through the crystal tunnel, Sonic and Zaga will emerge underneath a giant structure that is held by large marble pillars and connected to the walls by thin bridges. Above it is a circular opening to the outside which is pure brilliance relative to the darkness. In order to scale the palace, Sonic will need to climb the crystal ledges until he can reach a pair of columns. By taking a lower route from an earlier split in the path, he can stand between them. From there, he can wall jump until he reaches the palace. He will land on a suspended platform that rests underneath the entire palace. The platform has many large gaps in it, however, requiring adept ability from Sonic in terms of standard jumping and wall-jumping in order to scale this building. He will need to clear gaps and land on walls, which he must carefully slide down so he does not fall to the start. His vertical movement is tested here, and he will need precise timing to pass the very challenging obstacles presented in the strange architecture of the palace.

When he finally enters the building, dimly lit by the glowing orbs packed into the wall, he will only need to wall jump up vertical pathways and run down long corridors with mosaics lining the walls. In one corridor, the first mosaic is indecipherable due to cracks and missing pieces, but the remaining ones depict the Floating Island being released from the Earth due to the Master Emerald's power. They showed Mobius, covered in fire and storms. They showed all of the other civilizations, each one, in absolute destruction. Mechanix was shown, the seven Chaos Emeralds attached to his body. The Master Emerald was then shown with cloaked echidnas surrounding it, and the final mosaic showed the Floating Island far above in the clouds with Mechanix asleep and buried deep underneath the scorched earth.

.

In another corridor, there is a tapestry of the Angelican Chaos Emerald's properties, and very complicated diagrams that led towards an image of the Master Emerald. There were some smaller artistic pieces of various forms showing the Floating Island hovering over the other six lands, which seemed to be a reoccurring motif.

.

Finally, Sonic will reach the familiar top of the palace, but he will find the Master Emerald's chamber empty. Continuing on, he will come into a room with floating and spinning pairs of helical ribbons. In the marble walls, large glass balls with a deep red color slowly pulsate and small crystals flicker and reflect the color of the room into itself. Standing within it is Knuckles.

.

"This is it. This is as far as you are you ever going to go," he stated calmly.

"Knuckles! You're already here?"

Suddenly, the entryway behind Sonic shut with a heavy stone door slamming into the ground. Sonic turned and gawked for a moment before looking back. Knuckles was silent.

He saw his unmoving eyes, his still face, his very still body. Sonic could feel an unstoppable resilience radiate from Knuckles. He did not flinch. "You want another beating?" Sonic spat. He raised his fists.

"Don't be stupid."

Sonic paused, but his anger was mounting against Knuckles. He couldn't think but how many times he got in his way. Knuckles continued. "Mechanix has spoken with me personally." Sonic paid sharp attention to that name, which had many disturbing images attached to it. His anger submerged as a wave of anticipation came over him. "He talked to me for a little while. He told me about a lot of things... He said, that you were trying to stop Robotnik, not fight him directly, then. He does not consider you a friend, but he will not seek you out as an enemy."

Zaga then spoke out, "If you will not seek action against us, then move aside, brother! That creature of which you speak must be stopped before he tosses your world into the eternal abyss!"

"This isn't my world!" he yelled back.

"I want _Old Mobius_ to return... I want to see my _own_ people... I want to see... if I have a family..."

"I am one of your kind, brother Knuckles. Do you not see?" Zaga raised his arms in acceptance.

Knuckles smirked but didn't look back at him. "You can't fool me, Zaga. Mechanix has told me about you, too."

Zaga's demeanor changed. Knuckles didn't look at him. "You are no friend of mine."

Zaga hesitated, and then Knuckles looked to Sonic. "Sonic, I know you well enough that nothing I can say will change your mind."

He slowly raised his mitts. "And the same goes for me."

Sonic then shouted back, his anger bursting back. "No, you idiot! You must know how many people are going to **die** if Mechanix gets a hand on the Master Emerald! He already has more power than he has ever had before... he only had the Chaos Emeralds when he killed off the seven tribes of your ancestors. And the Black Emerald, which your ancestors shot into space after the event which forced your ancestors to burrow into the ground. There is no hope to defeat him if he gains that last one, the master of all the emeralds!"

Knuckles held his ground unwaveringly. He said something, but he paused at first. "...You're just not an echidna."

A dart seemed to pierce Sonic's ears, and he noticed that the air suddenly grew colder. Sonic felt a sensation that was indescribable, yet overwhelmed him completely. It was a realization, deep in his mind that reverberated so strongly it seemed to encompass all his senses. The world had suddenly become distorted. Something has irreversibly changed. He looked to Knuckles who looked at him.

"You don't understand what it's like to have lived your entire life alone, never knowing the concept of people loving you and helping you when you ask the storming sky why you were cursed to live. You have no idea how many times I told myself that it would be impossible to change that."

His fists were now fully raised. "You and I have nothing in common about this. There is nothing to say. I don't want to hear it."

Knuckles bent his back and legs, taking up a fighting position. "You were never my friend, Sonic. You don't need to know why I do what I do. I don't need to tell you." He was breathing rapidly.

He then took in a slow and long breath, then exhaled. "I'm not going to feel bad about killing you."

He rushed towards Sonic, who was caught off guard enough to narrowly avoid a massive punch that howled from the wind. Zaga, who was ignored to the side, immediately erected a barrier around Knuckles. In the same instant, he shot a blast at the wall, which crumbled and revealed an orb contained in a legged, metal bowl. "I remembered... Sonic! You must make haste to that displacement device!" As he finished those words, looking at Sonic, he didn't notice Knuckles' fist planting into his cheek. Upon realizing it, he was launched to his side and flipped over himself as he tumbled across the floor.

"You fucking coward! Escaping! I'll fucking rip you apart!" Knuckles shouted as he sprinted towards Sonic. Zaga threw another barrier around Knuckles, who easily broke it by thrusting his fist through it.

"Get to the Phoenix Point first!" Zaga shouted.

Sonic dashed towards the teleporter, but Knuckles was hot on his tail. Zaga scurried to his feet and sprinted, too. Knuckles slammed both fists into the ground, sending a shockwave that toppled Sonic onto his back. At that moment, Zaga leaped and wrestled Knuckles to the floor. Sonic looked back, concerned about Zaga who was still conscious from the devastating punch before.

Zaga glared back at him. "Faster than you have ever ran before!"

Sonic clambered upright and crawled onto the orb, which suddenly bathed the room in red light. The color blipped out into darkness, then in a flash returned even brighter. Just as rapidly, it faded out again. As it charged up, Sonic could not move. He could only watch as Zaga's blood splattered across the floor from pound after pound into his body. He felt the floor shake, and felt his bones vibrating. The ruby light came again in full force, blinding him with sheer scarlet brilliance. But he still heard the violent smashes that had no tone, no rhythm, but just fierce loudness. Zaga could not offer any resistance other than holding his arms above his head. He could not move. He felt his body lift into the air, but he did not feel any safer. The entire time, Knuckles' eyes were permanently on Sonic. As the light faded out once more, Sonic could only realize that the entire time he was waiting to kill him. Within seconds from starting his punishing on Zaga, he got to his feet. Sonic stared back, fear reproducing and coiling in his stomach. The sense of time itself being nothing for Knuckles turned into a crawling parasite that absorbed all of Sonic's thought and confidence. It was a primal type of fear that consumed him violently and offered him no hope of action that gave him a sickly fear about contemplating the very imminent future where Knuckles would have his fists at his face. Knuckles was bearing within a few seconds' worth of time to his position. He came as if his weight was not affected by gravity. He seemed to fly directly at him, as if the air collapsed before him.

Light surrounded Sonic, a blood red drowning out all he could see.

.

**Sky Sanctuary** [Act 1] (7/34)

The light disappeared. Sonic felt his feet lightly waving in the wind, then slammed back onto the orb. He felt wind rush against his body as the pain sent waves of pain and alertness through his body. As he slowly recovered, he looked around him and saw that he was on a moss-covered stone platform. Far below and above him were churning, spinning black clouds, blasting across the skyscape at lightning speeds. Glowing bolts were flashing between the masses of cloud at every instant. He looked to the platform below him, which hovered near another floating stone platform. There was a long road of such platforms, all at different horizontal and vertical distances from each other. They resembled the spiral shape of a tornado, expanding into the giant cavern of violent sky around him. At the end of its massive fountain opening was a building made of marble so black it looked darker than the storm itself. It had a radiant green penumbra that emanated on its circumference. Upon seeing that light, he leaped off the orb and made his way towards it.

The main difficulty of this level is keeping a constant speed to beat the narrow time limit now on its second act. This is because nearly all of the platforms are particularly short yet are separated by the same length of distance. Additionally, without enough speed, he will not clear most of the very large horizontal distances that arise at the end of the path. Since some platforms float above the platforms behind them, Sonic will also need to find ways to move vertically without slowing down to make use his most powerful wall jumps. Even those which are too tall to leap upon, can be low enough to run directly up the wall with enough speed. The strong headwind will make the platforms constantly move, as well. Objects on the the platforms may play a role in helping him progress, such as collapsible pillars and springs hid under the large mounds of moss which sticks tightly despite the wind. Once Sonic reaches the building at the end, the timer will stop.

.

He looked at the building. It had a conically sloped marble roof supported by slim, blackened, bronze columns. Its underside had spires facing downwards and elaborate, thin sculptures hanging freely between them by steel wires. Sonic looked closer at them, seeing them to be very abstract representations of Old Mobians, holding onto the building with one or two hands. Through and amongst the figures were flakes of rock suspended by tinier filaments. Some of the filaments pierced the bodies as well.

Sonic looked up at the building and walked towards it. There was a quiet screaming sound of air within the deafening howl of the wind. Between the bronze columns were giant folds of a fabric-like material. Sonic stepped on to the narrow platform that rests outside of that material and circles the entire building. He pushes against the fabric, but the weight is beyond his strength to budge. He stood there, hands resting against the smooth, heavy surface, trying to still his patience. The wind howled around him, and he felt himself becoming aggravated at the situation.

Suddenly, he got an idea. He crouched and charged up a spindash, letting it loose into the small wedge underneath the obstacle. His spinning quickly picked and knocked the wall into the air and he busted through. He quickly untucked, finding himself within the sanctuary. The difference in sound disoriented him as well as finding himself in blinding green light. He stood completely still as his vision adjusted. It was one circular room with a metal contraption in the center concealing the Master Emerald, whose magnificent light flooded out of the thin edges and holes of the device. On the walls, there was the same material covering every side. The material was very elegantly designed on the inside, painted with very fine details and patterns that had no color. Dust motes floated lazily through the air. Sonic looked around, his footsteps echoing noticeably. The floor and ceiling were also painted, their colors faded most near the heavy curtain walls. They all had patterns that radiated from the center, which was lower than the rest of the room by a few steps' worth. Standing there in the very middle was that complicated sculpture of metal pieces, sharply folded over each other in mathematical intervals like the petals of an opening flower. It was several times his size and every petal's edge gleamed only as a razor could. He walked around it. "This must be it. But how do I get it out of there without killing myself?" He stopped, turned, and hesitantly approached it. He reached out and touched it. Sonic stared at it for a moment, then drew closer. He lightly pressed his fingers against the frosty cold metal then felt it give way. He withdrew and stared at the blades. "This really feels like a bad idea."

He walked over to the blade and saw his face reflected back into a twisted shape. He stopped directly in front of it, and put his hands over the edge. He tried not to think about what could happen.

"No, there must be some other way. I need to stop and think this through... although faster..." He turned around and gazed off towards the sheet-like wall. Noticing what he was looking at, suddenly, he received an epiphany. He flipped back and saw the flower sculpture. "This better do it!"

He rapidly spinballed into the edge, dislodging it as some connected apparatus underground started to push it into motion. The metal had snapped around violently, although with the blades in the opposite direction of what would decapitate Sonic. The blunt backside of a petal had smashed his chest, forcing him to stumble backwards. He looked back and saw the petals unfolding and spreading out into the open space, rotating around each other. As they did, green light flooded out, pouring over the ceilings and covering the floors. Sonic held his hand but still couldn't see the Emerald at first. He kept low as the blades whizzed through the air overhead. "That's it..."

The Master Emerald blazed brilliantly with a green that seemed to turn every surface into the slowly moving colors of pure energy. Its deeply detailed inner crystalline structure stood in a pool of pure green. Sonic's eyes finally adjusted and he returned to his feet when the petals had stopped moving. He stepped over to the gem and briskly grasped it with both arms.

"Arghhh!" He felt heat and an indescribable force move into his palms and down his arms.

He tried lifting and pushing the jewel, but it remained still. A strange feeling overcame his body then, branching like lightning through his veins into his body. His mind became overwhelmed with pressure and he felt it pulsing painfully like a mallet swinging at his skull. He recoiled his arms and grabbed his head, feeling his skin suddenly aflame and the waves of energy rushing deeper into his brain.

"What is this..." He choked on his own words, suddenly unable to speak. His jaw felt like it had frozen over and his vocal folds seemed dead. He then saw the petal next to him stretch out far into the distance, and he saw the ceiling bend and curve away from him. The small building transformed into a massive basilica with masterfully created artwork dedicated to Old Mobius. Everything came alive and animated themselves. The columns had patterns rotating around their wavering bodies and the walls changed color with every breath they made. He wondered how he could move around, then thought about his legs and found the world suddenly spinning into itself. A line on his body made contact with something hard. He felt like it pushed him and he turned around, only to find himself rolling on the floor.

He looked up, his body slumped over the endless steps giving him a good angle of the other half of the building. The folded walls had been easily torn apart by a strange essence from outside. It rushed in, swooping across everything and peeling off all of their animated surfaces. The flower before him split apart by the petals, which, despite not having eyes, glared menacingly at Sonic as they passed by. The essence was not definable by Sonic as something "visible", because he identified it with the same strange force that seized his arms earlier. It was a force of its own will. Instantly, the strange power burst towards him and engulfed him in an instant. His vision was immediately cleared of everything that he would consider as reality. He no longer saw the room, but instead a mixture of animated colors and shapes that surrounded him in all of his full vision. He felt the vibrating force of his own being leave his body, no longer feeling things by touch.

The shapes had already evolved into extremely detailed designs of intricate repeating patterns, of which all of the common motifs and themes, with their underlying meanings and histories, were directly understandable by Sonic. Information was flooding into his mind, and yet he felt neither overwhelmed nor listless. He could hardly believe that he was still thinking anymore, and his mind drifted into increasing layers of abstraction away from his vivid perceptions. He felt his consciousness transcend his body, his hallucinations, the world he was in, until it was accelerating away like everything was ending. Yet, he was only moving towards a central point.

A being stood before Sonic. Even with his significantly altered perception of time, he was jolted by its instantaneous arrival. It had a head shape that defied any geometric interpretation, with infinitely long dreadlocks oscillating across all of the dimensions in every direction. He could perceive three eyes, which stared at him with an intensity that would make the sun look dim.

Before Sonic could bare more witness to this figure, it showed to him glass pearls that each contained the sum of all possible timelines for several universes. Billions of galaxies burst out and streamed around his body. In the instant one would take to read a page in a book, he would come to understand everything about a galaxy. Within what seemed like years, although he could hardly tell the length of a second, he managed to find Mobius. He looked into its past, and saw echidnas running across the earth. He saw how they lived in low and limited numbers, and he looked into their eyes and saw how desperate and painful their lives were. He saw tribes of different species growing and fighting each other. They developed weapons, and as archery and spears came around, the echidnas became in danger of extinction. The hedgehogs had developed the "death tumble", which Sonic recognized immediately. The foxes were also becoming increasingly intelligent at this point. Sonic could not control his vision. The focus of his attention was grasped in a vise and pointed towards the echidnas. He saw an echidna man lead an army into the ranks of other echidna tribes, and offered unison, or upon refusal, death. He saw the echidna man become the leader of hundreds of tribes, while the hedgehogs and foxes still fought amongst themselves. The echidnas quickly grew a civilization and called themselves Zexakal, or Under Zexa. Upon that revelation, Sonic immediately recognized the resemblance between the god-like entity and the one man.

In that instant, an explosion from the being cleared Sonic's mind of all of his perceptions of this god realm, and felt a pain sharply strike his back. He heard a voice, covered in fog and darkness, say to him, "If you continue..." He felt himself stretch out in pain and saw the layers of abstraction and color disappear before him like a receding tide. He felt like he was being dragged backwards as his eyesight returned objects to their normal proportions. He felt his pain continue to flare and burn, and he saw a glint of bright white light piercing the omnipresent green. He shook his foot, felt it, and rolled backwards, launching himself up to his feet. He looked at Mechanix, who stood on the other side of the still exposed Master Emerald.

"No!" He sprinted as fast as he could, leaped over the Emerald, and aimed at Mechanix's face. He threw his fist out, but instead his whole arm hit something. He felt the world spin around him again, and then his back split open with more pain. He reopened his eyes and saw Mechanix's blue eyes glowing right in front of him. He could feel the energy radiating from his hand, which nailed Sonic into the floor with sharp claws poking right above his skin. Sonic felt like he was being held down there for forever, but the hallucinations ended there. He felt his blood flow through his body at a normal rate, and planted his feet onto the ground. He quickly knocked off his hand, turned to his side, and bashed his way out.

"What was that?! Suddenly, he was..." Mechanix murmured to himself, surprised.

"I'll kill you! This isn't going to continue anymore!" Sonic shouted back. He was flying through the air, his legs having launched him into a sprint towards Mechanx that would end a second later.

"Meaningless." Mechanix replied and struck Sonic into the walls. Sonic tried to gasp for air, but found himself paralyzed when he hit the extremely heavy curtain. It folded backwards, slowly swooping out towards the open sky. For a moment, things froze. He saw, below him, the threatening mass of clouds churning and sparking lightning.. He felt air rush against his body, and feeling himself dropping and heard the wind rushing behind him as the wall swung back. His feet hit the floor and his knees could not withstand the speed. He flew forward, all of his body being scraped by the floor as he slid and began tumbling over himself. He felt like his skin was being torn off at his knees, and realized his body had stopped moving on the cold, smooth floor. He tried to budge his body into motion, fighting the scorching pain as he slowly moved himself once more to his feet. He was stunned -moving without thinking to – from the power of the attack. He saw Mechanix's feet walk towards the base of the Emerald.

"No..." Sonic said weakly.

Before Mechanix could touch it, a massive weight pressed on Sonic's body and he collapsed onto the ground. It was a darkness, some unknown, painless space that he entered, where all at once, things were deprived of meaning. He could not understand anything and lost all sensation. A gossamer fabric of sickly colors became wrapped over his body, and a gradual image of death overcame him. He could only envision death and how he could not fight it at all. He then lost all ability to think. His eyes were covered with haze and dim color, his mind losing all focus on the body and all he could muster was a feeling of confusion as he blacked out.

.

**Horizon High** [Act 1] (7/35)

Pain! In the air, Sonic opened his eyes. He was near a wall, and he threw his legs back to balance. The pain flashed through his cheek again as he realized he was punched awake. He looked towards his enemy. He was an echidna, wearing an ancient, crusty leather armor. His fists were wrapped with tight cloths. He swung his other arm for a punch.

Sonic dodged and quickly threw a punch into his face, knocking him to the side. He leaped backwards and relaxed for a moment. As the echidna stumbled about for a moment, he looked around him. He was in a very orthogonal room; its width and height were perfectly the same length and the walls were absolutely empty of texture or color. Below him, however, there was vivid color of the world below. He saw purple land resting from an omnipresent darkness that bathed world, but was alit by some very vibrant red columns of light that pierced from beneath the earth. He could barely understand what he was seeing when the fist again came to strike him. He grabbed it and quickly launched a punch into his chest, sending him into the wall.

.

The man choked and grabbed his chest. He wheezed and gasped for air, giving Sonic a chance to run down the corridor he was in. It seemed to go on for a very far distance.

As he continued to run, large strips of glass will fly from the floor up the walls, revealing the emergence of ancient Old Mobian cities far beneath the surface of the planet. It seemed unreal. It couldn't possibly be happening. As he kept on running, the world started to shift around him. The red color flooded the room, ripping off the smooth walls and shattering the glass. Sonic found himself running through the beams of light as the world floated into the aether. The beams are very long and Sonic will be running at speeds he has never reached in reality. He will always be running on their underside, even if that means running upside down when they move backwards. As he runs by, the world will twist around him. He'll find himself in hallucinations, running on paths he ran a while ago. The areas he jumps through have the same style but are different in a subtle way. They are more difficult to clear with speed. Blue Hill at first quickly blurs by. Every now and then, an explosion from below would tear through the world he was in like a wall of flame, bringing him back to the cold corridors, completely flat and empty of danger. Also on occasion, tiny abstract metal figures will chase him down from behind while firing lasers at him. They look the same regardless of the world Sonic is in, although Sonic himself will change to an enemy he busted in the particular area he was in. At the end of the long hallway is a room filled with perfectly rectangular glowing prisms connecting every face of the room. The prisms seemed to be composed of a partially translucent metal that conducted electricity through tubes that brilliantly glowed the colors of the rainbow. The colors would zoom down the prisms and splash into the lumbering ocean of mixed colors that floated on the floor, walls and ceiling. He'll make his way into the center, when suddenly they moved, piece by piece at a rapid pace to lock him within.

.

"Sonic, your persistence is futile. You can do nothing to stop me. The power of all the Emeralds makes controlling every piece of this ship a simple task. You are absolutely helpless, so quit. I will not kill you if I do not have to."

In a flash of light and noise, something appeared besides Sonic. He turned around and saw another Old Mobian, wearing a suit made out of Black Stone and bronze.

"I will let someone else kill you, however."

The Old Mobian took from a sheath on his back a double-edged longsword. He pointed it at Sonic and growled an indecipherable string of sounds. Sonic simply backed away and the man screamed out, aiming to slice him apiece.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

While fighting him, the light around him begins to take a life of its own and creates different battlefields made entirely out of color.

- The warrior will move very fast and every swing of his sword cuts the air itself. The Black Rocks and his sword makes him a dangerous opponent, while his armor will prevent Sonic from attacking him directly.

- Instead, when the man attacks with a strike that flows through the air, Sonic must spindash and strike it to send it back at him.

Although he will go down in eight hits, he will grow and shrink and move faster and slower due to the hallucinations Sonic is under. Without any sense of timing, he can only act on reflex to attack.

.

[Act 2]

The psychedelia will wear off as the Old Mobian collapses to the ground. Reality crystallizes around Sonic as the prisms move to their original positions. As the path unfolds before him another bland corridor is revealed ahead. He goes in.

The path is not straight anymore, cutting up into vertical shafts or dropping down into other corridors. The same metal over all of the walls changed texture, having layers of metallic sheets laid over each other. Glass is omnipresent, the armageddon constantly within eyesight.

As Sonic continues onward, he will be attacked by more of Mechanix's tiny mechanic minions, including ones that speedily zoom across surfaces and attack Sonic on the way. Zexakal warriors as well will be teleported up from the ground. Additionally, traps mire the corridors ahead. Some are simple, like bungee pits and collapsible ceilings, while others, like a chain that grasps Sonic's leg as circular saw approaches, require quick thinking on Sonic's part in order to survive (in that case, he would need to spindash himself out of the chain).

Especially later on will Sonic find himself in traps that seem beyond his ability to escape. In several areas, a wall of deadly spikes will hound Sonic down through the corridors. Although he can barely avoid it at first, it will be beyond his ability to avoid it in addition to the many traps and enemies that will block his way ahead. This will be when time will freeze and allow him to glide through the many traps that would normally be 100% fatal.

At the end of the corridor is a large room with glass covering the walls. From here, spires from the ship are seen in the distant, reaching down to the torn earth. Thousands of towers from hundreds of buildings jutted out from the broken surface. The world was glowing red hot, steaming and smoking. As Sonic looked out in dismay, the floor beneath him suddenly gave way. He was standing on it as it fell, and quickly reacted by leaping to the nearby wall and launching back to stable ground. The circumference of the room had dropped into nothingness, but Sonic paid more attention to another Zexakal warrior who stood before him.

.

Mechanix's voice called out again. "Ridiculous. I have calculated that it is impossible for you, even with your speed, to make it this far... but nonetheless I have planned just for that case."

He suddenly began speaking in a foreign tongue. The warrior's attention was grabbed, and he conversed back with him. Sonic took a good look at him from afar: he wore colorful armor that seemed to be made out of a light, but durable material. It shined brightly, with only small dings and scratches marring its engraved surfaces. He held a shield and a finely crafted sword.

Mechanix said a particular word and the man snapped his eyes onto Sonic. His expression grew increasingly hostile as Mechanix spoke to him.

Suddenly, he heard him say, "It does not take much convincing my people to kill you, hedgehog. They seem particularly delighted to punish your species."

In a flash, Sonic remembered Knuckles and the Alastran slave. An explosion of anger burst through Sonic just as the echidna started spouting some abusively toned epithets at him. He walked over and pointed his sword in his direction. Sonic could feel anger rise from the man, while his mind was contemplating the truth of what Mechanix said.

.

[Act 2 Boss]

The echidna is much more talented with the sword than Sonic's previous opponent.

- Every swing will be made to kill, forcing Sonic on the run. He will quickly close any gap, keeping the pressure on.

- If Sonic tries to attack, the warrior will repel him with the shield and then quickly counterattack.

Sonic will first need to separate him from his equipment, so he must knock him down the sides of the room. The warrior will slide down and eventually stab the wall with his sword for some footing. If Sonic can strike him in this time, he will only have his shield. The Zexakal will be able to wall jump up and take his sword back unless Sonic continues after him down the hole.

In that narrow vertical chamber, Sonic must keep his own footing on the walls while simultaneously fighting the warrior who is trying the same.

- He will try to knock Sonic down by ramming with his shield and will climb up at a rapid rate when not attacking or being attacked. If Sonic can attack him from behind while he's in the middle of a jump, the shield will be knocked out of his hand as well. At this point, he will give up trying to climb and will simply fall down to get his shield. Sonic must leap downwards on the walls to catch up and strike the echidna in mid-air.

With just one hit, the echidna will lose control and collide into the walls in the direction Sonic hit him at. Eventually, both of them will reach the pitch-black bottom of the pit. When the echidna hits the floor, the floor detaches from the walls and slides down the vertical steel bars that keep it connected. The floor slams into the bolts resting at the bottom of the bars, and the force of the collision sends both of them back into the air. In between the bars is nothing; the floor is all that keeps them from falling below the ship to the dying world below. The armor on the Zexakal broke from his fall, leaving him finally vulnerable.

The shield hasn't fallen over, so Sonic must quickly knock it off the platform before the warrior grabs it and becomes significantly more difficult to defeat.

- Otherwise, he will clamber to his feet and withdraw a stiletto. Without his shield, Sonic must draw close and as soon as the warrior makes a stab Sonic must strike. If he is directly on the edge, he will be knocked off to his death, otherwise, he will gain footing and come again.

Of course, eight hits will finish him anyway. With the shield, Sonic must not only avoid a stab to attack, he must do it twice; once to stun and the other to actually hit.

.

Sonic relaxed and looked around him. The frigid wind howls and bites into him as an omnipresent hum coming from the earth gave grim color to the cold silence. He looked above. The floor had slid farther than he could clear.

Suddenly, within the darkness above, a tensile snap echoed down to Sonic. His heart exploded into motion and adrenaline filled his body. He quickly looked around, seeing the underside of the steel ship. It was uneven, blocks of different shapes laying over each other. He saw an opening in one of the blocks and sprinted towards it. As he leaps, there was a wave of pure loudness that overcame his ears. As he landed and slid, he turned his head back with ears ringing to see the suspended platform which the annular pit surrounded slamming into the floor. The massive weight broke through the platform and ripped the bars out of the steel, carrying out large chunk of the metal blocks.

Sonic stood for a moment, his heartbeat slowing down. He wondered how Mechanix could find such perfect slabs of metal, and how he could make an entire ship out of it. As he got to his feet, he wondered how he was going to defeat him.

As he repeated that question in his mind, the meaning of the question smacked into him. He reflected on why he was even standing where he was. He realized that he was in shock... he had not even wondered why he was alive or how he got so far in Mechanix's ship. He walked to the edge and looked down below. He had already failed to prevent this. The world was splitting apart... it was being destroyed. He thought about how everyone counted on him to stop Mechanix... but in so quick a time he was brought to his knees...

Absurdity grabbed him. He now has all the emeralds. What could he possibly do to stop him? Why does it matter anymore? He thought about all the times he fought Mechanix, about how he never could kill him. He was like a phoenix...

The wind did not stop blowing. Sonic felt even colder. He was scared. Whether he fights Mechanix or not, he is going to die. He is going to die soon.

He remembered the face of Zaga or what he could see before Knuckles' fists pummeled it in. He remembered Knuckles' endless staring... he remembered the feeling of fear shooting through his spine. He remembered Tails, who rejected Sonic but couldn't stay angry at him. He remembered Egg Hunter, mercilessly destroyed by Mechanix. He remembered seeing on the monitor... the corpse of Robotnik...

He wanted to stop remembering. He didn't want to feel this tremendous weight that was bearing down on him. He turned around and started walking. The emotions that were rising were too much for him. He wanted to run away from all the possibilities that he was contemplating, all the questions he was asking. He didn't want this burden on his shoulders. He never wanted to be a hero, much less the world's only savior. He wanted happiness. He wanted to escape his weakness. He ran.

.

[Act 3]

The metal blocks tend to have rectangular hallways that Sonic can run through, but some do not. Sonic will need to navigate the ship's underside without falling to his death. He will need to time jumps to clear gaps onto sometimes very small platforms that do not permit overjumping. Sonic must exercise his ability to move horizontally while solely on vertical surfaces i.e. walls. As he moves on, Mechanix will catch on to his position and detach blocks of metal that Sonic may or may not be on at the time. Eventually, Sonic will find himself climbing up the side of the ship. As he does, robots will exit the ship from tiny crevices between some blocks and attack him. He will see through the many panes of glass and see that the rest of the ship, inside and out, is a bleak, artless mass of the steel blocks. Once he reaches the top of the ship, pieces will move outwards and block his path unless he can avoid them as he goes by. Many mobile robots will be sent after him. After running far enough, Sonic will come to a tower that overlooks most of the ship. It is a tall prism, oddly reminiscent of the disappearing tower from the island that sealed Mechanix away.

.

The tower moves back into the ship. Mechanix is facing Sonic, who covers his eyes. Mechanix is glowing a steady white that is too bright to look directly at. His eyes burn blue, however, even through the pure light.

"Do you want to kill me?"

Mechanix grasped Sonic's intention and thus commanded his attention.

"I shall offer you an opportunity."

His aura disappears in an instant and Sonic notices him take the Black Emerald out of his chest. It floats out of his hand and in an instant jets out of sight.

"With this much power, it is unconscious to manipulate the shape of objects and the power of their reactions to outside forces."

He holds out his hand and a rough ball of folded metal flies into it from below. He brings forth his other hand, and after a blur of movements moves it back to his side as a machine begins gyrating and floats into the air.

"The Emeralds have freed my consciousness from the digital fetters locked around my mind. This body is now but the avatar of my immeasurable willpower. It is impossible for one like you to know my true essence."

He approaches Sonic, who could only stare back, waiting for the chance to attack Mechanix again. "I offer you an opportunity to demonstrate your will against mine. At least your fragile soul could be said to have struggled against me, your very god."

.

[Act 3 Boss : MECHANIX]

"Know my one being. Become humble through your body and through your mind to my infinite will."

In a flash, the white aura surrounding Mechanix disappears into the air. His parts lose their glow. His chest opens up and all seven Chaos Emeralds exit his body. Glass cages from the floor hover outwards and encapsulate the gems. They then hover far above Sonic's reach. As this happen, Mechanix transforms into his original form. He becomes chunkier and more voluminous.

The ground underneath Sonic starts vibrating. It is soon oscillating transversely, the mysterious metal turns into an unending series of waves. The air above Sonic seems to change, too. It becomes liquid-like, with different streams of air refracting light at different rates. Bubbles in the air rush by, reflecting all things outside of them. As the ship soars through the sky, the sun begins setting amongst the ever-morphing clouds of ever-changing texture. Helices and rings of fire and energy pulse out of it, casting color and light across the many surfaces they touch.

.

[MECHANIX]

Mechanix without any emeralds or power boosts. He regenerates the slowest like this, making him the most vulnerable now. Again, his attacks in his original form are:

- a forward dash followed by a broad slash using the blades on his arms

- leaping to do the same attack from the air

- thrusting his palm forward (with fingers extended) to launch a projectile of compressed air

- locking-on Sonic and firing a small, quick energy blast from 3 to 5 times

- locking-on Sonic and dashing towards his position in a linear path. He'll hold his bladed arms to protect him mid-dash and will pull them forward to ram those blades into Sonic.

- Additionally, in mid-air he can suddenly dash parallel to the ground for a short time.

- He will have nothing off which he can wall-jump.

- His maximum speed is slightly slower than Sonic's maximum speed.

Despite all this, he takes 32 hits before stopping.

.

Sonic's attacks seem to do less damage even though Mechanix was in the same form. Mechanix slides backwards to make some distance. The ground underneath him shifts and rolls across itself, raising pieces of metal upwards to lift Mechanix above the battleground. While watching from above, he controlled the animation of the many blocks of steel beneath him.

Two of the Chaos Emeralds shot into the air from their cages. Their every movement disturbs the air around them, causing it to bend and warp like a pond stirred by floating pebbles. Their movements were harmonious with the vibrating ground and rushing air. They erect energy barriers around themselves that would harm Sonic if he touches them. One moves horizontally above Sonic, tracking his position until it stops and fires a laser. The other will stand to the side and steadily shoot out waves of energy pellets which Sonic must navigate through as well. After twenty waves of firing with a frequency in-tune to the omnipresent vibration, this emerald will lose its energy and cease moving. It will become an object subject to the visible flow all around. The laser-firing emerald will also drop its shield after ejecting all of its energy after blasting its power. Sonic must wall-jump off of the lower Emerald and spinball through the higher one. They will both fall to the floor as if knocked dead out of a haunting trance, when Mechanix will throw out his hand and pull them back towards him by an invisible force (although Sonic can notice this very force in the modulation to the oscillations).

He then pulls another Emerald out of a cage and they all naturally glide into the open cavity in his chest. The many pieces of his body begin to shift around each other again, settling in a new position that gave him a larger, fiercer shape. The angular nature of his body pieces make his entire body look sharp and dangerous. In the many creases and cracks in the planar intersections of the many blocks of this amalgamated body, there is a faint and pulsing white light. The shadows they cast give him an increasingly threatening appearance.

Sonic begins to see how long this battle will become. He decides to act conservatively about his health when fighting these forms of Mechanix he's beaten before. Mechanix jumps off his elevated platform and attacks Sonic.

.

[MECHANIX ADEPT]

Mechanix with the power of three Chaos Emeralds. Mechanix's speed progresses past Sonic's maximum speed. He develops two new techniques:

- opening a pocket door in his hand that reveals a laser cannon within the arm, to fire rapid streams of small laser pulses

- charging his cannon to fire a blast so large that Sonic can only dodge it by rolling under.

He will take thirty-two hits before falling. The ground jumps underneath him, launching the block Mechanix is on back to his higher recovery position behind him.

.

This causes the ground to be disturbed and to likewise explode upwards. A fourth Chaos Emerald shoots out of its cage as the force of the immense blocks crush it, rocketing it into the air. When it lands on the ground, it ejects its energy in a spherical explosion. The explosion forces another glass cage to shatter, sending the emerald within spinning over Sonic's head. As he watches it, he sees a lengthened tetrahedral of energy form around it, orienting its sharp spike in Sonic's direction regardless of the spinning or position of the emerald itself. Sonic instinctively leaped to the side as it shot towards the ground and pierced the air that took the place of Sonic's chest. He then turns to see the first emerald launching back into the sky. He turns back as the second emerald drops, bounces off the ground (despite making an uncanny 'clink') and hops across the stage at a lower height and faster rate.

Sonic tries to always keep in mind the space between him and both the line of sight of the arrow-like emerald and the blast radius of the bomb-like emerald, whenever he sees it come down. While Sonic is evading death, Mechanix will control the wave-like motion of his ship's moving parts to Sonic's disadvantage. The sinuforms will go by with great haste or rather slowly as to confuse Sonic and ruin his continuous movement. He will also alter the length of the waves to the same effect.

When the leaping emerald collides with the ground, so too will the spinning emerald attempt to shank Sonic. This is also in tune to the spinning flows of the air and ship. For a brief period after their attack, they will be motionless, having expired the energy they could take from within themselves for that period. Sonic must spindash through both or one will recover energy before he can attack it next.

.

With both Chaos Emeralds defeated, Mechanix cleaves the ground in two. The blocks beneath Sonic drop into the ship, forcing a tall wall between him and his enemy. He looks to the other wall and finds it is too far to wall-jump.

Sonic backs away for a moment, realizing that Mechanix must be covering his weakness if he needs to receive the Chaos Emeralds before healing. He looks at the walls again, seeing planes and polygons shift, merge and segment over each other in a never-ending sea of mechanical transformation. From the tiny spaces in between, a cool, deep blue light makes Sonic feel like the pit is a pool, and he's pinned to the bottom.

Breaking through his thoughts, Mechanix slams into the ground behind him. His pieces rotate around each other in a complex, inter-connected fashion. Sonic watches Mechanix transform again, with the light of the Chaos Emeralds somehow leaking through his body. The many pieces fit into each other and change the texture of the surface to smooth and sleek. Elaborate runic inscriptions reveal themselves on his body. His metal reflects the white light that was much more noticeable now.

.

[MECHANIX EXPERT]

Mechanix with 5 Chaos Emeralds. His speed surpasses Sonic's maximum speed even further. All of his attacks have been retained, but his attacks have become stronger in general. Specifically:

- His laser cannon is now rapid-fire

- His charged laser beam becomes twice as large

- His slice attacks hook Sonic still for a 5-hit combination

- His dash becomes much faster, nearly being instantaneous

- He will now curve his thrusting energy attack to follow Sonic until he runs out of energy

Additionally, he reveals even more attacks to corner Sonic:

- He now thrusts forward both of his arms like pistons while swinging them, launching crescent-shaped slivers of energy spinning in rapid succession to overwhelm Sonic.

- He can now run across the walls, as well as being able to make powerful leaps off the walls.

- Following the above, he can run across the ground, leap off of one wall and land on the other to make a full revolution around the battlefield, all while firing a continuous laser beam targeted at the center of the room. To avoid the beam, Sonic must wall-jump off of the wall right before Mechanix does.

- He will also stop himself on the walls and fire rapid-fire lasers from up to bottom that Sonic must dodge between.

In thirty-two hits, Mechanix collapses again.

.

The blocks around vibrate and move faster. Suddenly, the ground below them gives way. Yet, Sonic and Mechanix both stand on the floor as if nothing happened. They free-fall without rotating or moving, as if it was the world around them that was flying upwards. The blue light behind the walls seems to be regularly alternate between bright and dim, once again creating waves of azure that flooded upwards like a hollow fountain.

Sonic wonders if he had completely lost in touch with reality when he looks upwards to see a glass block holding another emerald spinning wildly and dropping faster than anything else. Without anything touching it, it breaks into pieces. Mechanix then uses the invisible force to grab it and he put it within himself. The runic inscriptions curl and spread, covering more of his metallic surface. The white light was flush over his body and it pulsed in and out of darkness in a cyclic fashion that was in phase with the movements of everything around.

Sonic realizes that despite seemingly falling, he is bound to the ground as if it weren't falling, itself. He then goes to attack Mechanix, who blocks his attack.

.

[MECHANIX MASTER]

Mechanix with the power of 6 Chaos Emeralds. His speed is twice as high as Sonic's. All of his attacks are now even quicker and larger. More improvements to his techniques are:

- His slice attacks lead into a 6-slash combo

- The dash leaves behind only the flicker of a shadow

- He can combine attacks, such that his thrust palm attack can be releaed right after firing his laser cannon

- He can now hover for three seconds before falling.

As Mechanix chains together rapid, dangerous attacks, Sonic must react no slower than at a second's notice to his swift onslaught. This time he has no support from Zaga, and must secure thirty-two more hits to give himself reprieve.

.

Sonic pants for breath as Mechanix again falls to the ground. He dashes towards him, but Mechanix quickly slams the ground with his fist. The block he's on spins. Mechanix leaps upwards before the block hits the next block. In an instant, a chain reaction of blocks spinning into other blocks forces all of them to collide with each other. They bounce off, get caught together or get crushed against the walls. The ground becomes a sea of chaos, with Sonic suddenly in the middle of it. The spaces between the colliding blocks are small and always changing. Sonic hears the constant, gigantic noises of constant crunching and smashing as he narrowly drops between them.

He suddenly notices a wall rapidly approach him. He turned to see another block coming to crush him. Sonic felt completely helpless. He wriggled in free-fall, unable to push off anything, he felt the cold steel of the scythe of death prickling his neck. It was sharp, the peak of a rising wave of doom that slashed apart his mind in an instant.

Everything stopped moving. A sudden darkness made Sonic feel like he was transported into another dimension. The abstract, meaninglessly shaped blocks floating about without concern for position or orientation. The dark air, motionless and beautifully placid like a pond at midnight. The blue light could barely find itself amongst the many dim reflections in the cold metal.

Sonic then found his feet were touching the wall that would have killed him. He leaps off of it.

Once again, Sonic finds himself in frozen time. The sea of spinning platforms froze in a flash, leaving a dense maze of oddly shaped platforms to navigate through. Sonic will notice that in the bands of brightest blue light, there is enough space between the blocks to actually enter the ship. Once he makes his way through the maze, he'll enter the wall closest to him.

Inside is a wide horizontal space holding the blue lamps in the walls and glass for the ceiling and floor. Yet there is a patch of shadow that overpowers the light, coming from a small room on the other side of an extended corridor that connects the two areas. Sonic makes his way through this pathway, lit up by tiny, white rods that are placed in a helical pattern in the room.

In this room, Sonic finds the Black Emerald absorbing nearly all of the light in the room. Energy feeds into it through patches on the walls of the cube-shaped room and energy leaves it through the pedestal that carries it. On the other side of the room, hidden behind piles of scrap, lays a semi-formed mechanical skeleton.

Suddenly the room segmented into three pieces by its width. Just as he notices it, he becomes distracted by the sudden resurgence of a foreign sound in his ears. He turns around to see that time had restored itself and the blocks had continued to drop down the pit while ramming into each other. He then remembers the Black Emerald and whips around, only to find a wall fly upwards before him. As if built up while Sonic was moving, the waves of the metal and the air knocked Sonic to his side. He looked to the entrance to see it sliding against metal as well. The room crawled and pulsed around him. It navigated inside the giant shifting puzzle of the ship at high speeds all while changing shape itself. Sonic got to his feet, only to find himself flung off the ground by the stopping room.

He watches the ceiling run away from him and the wind of the air moving around him. He tries to rotate and stretches out his arms. The floor tackles into his hands, which slap in a resoundingly painful way. Sonic's arms flex from a rush of adrenaline and allow him to spring from his fall. He lands on his feet, although the floor gives him no support.

Aching, he turns around to see the transporting room he was in disappear into the walls, which are ceasing their incessant movement. Five of this large chamber's inner faces are blank and shapeless, while the last is covered with lamps and intricate forms. The light coming from it pulses from its center to its exterior, radiating off of the many reflective metallic surfaces.

A hole opens in this wall, revealing Mechanix who walks out with the final emerald. As the wall shuts tight behind him, he nonchalantly secures the emerald's power. He recovers all of their power. Sonic watches him carefully. Mechanix's body became like fire. It was perfectly smooth, yet every surface ended in a quick, usually spiky end. As he moved, his body flowed over itself like tongues of flame. The irises over his otherwise pitch-black eyes glowed out with a bright blue, while the rest of his form sizzled in a hot white aura.

.

"You must know your nothingness. You fight me, the Immortal. You do not seem to understand that your existence is dependent on my will." elocutes Mechanix. "Do you not regard me and see your own death?"

Sonic holds his breath. He looks back at Mechanix unwaveringly.

Mechanix throws his hands forward, and the air rips apart before him. Energy surges from his body and arcs across the ship. The clouds and horizon are seemingly torn off of reality.

Sonic is not bothered by the hallucinations by now, and held his ground. His eyes kept locked on the glowing being. He had defeated Mechanix before in this state. He did not know what would come ahead, but he had nowhere else to go. There was nowhere else to go. Mechanix lowers his hands.

"You are courageous, Sonic." He slowly glides towards him. "Courageous and foolish, to fight God."

.

[MECHANIX GRANDMASTER]

Mechanix with the power of all of the Chaos Emeralds. Mechanix's speed can no longer be termed in relation to Sonic. His movement is better described as 'teleporting'. Unlike last time, he will not slow down when he takes damage. His improvements:

- His combo now reaches 20-hits, which leaves Sonic nearly no time at all to recover

- He will attack bare-handed much more often, which means he will be more close-range

- His dash is instantaneous, so Sonic must jump when he sees Mechanix prepare for it beforehand

- He can hover indefinitely

- He can fire his charged laser beam multiple times

- His rapid-fire laser cannon can fire twice as fast

- If he continually charges his beam, it will end up being so large that Sonic cannot avoid it. To stop it, he has to attack Mechanix while he charges (he'll never be too high in the air for this). He can hover in the air and fire lasers from left to right leaving only small gaps, which Sonic must stop between to stay unhurt.

- He can also fire a plasma ball that bounces off the ground if it doesn't hit Sonic. He will then whack it to direct it at Sonic again with a faster speed. After a few whacks, it will just fly away. Sonic can only avoid this attack.

- He can suspend a white, temporarily invulnerable barrier around himself (usually when he is vulnerable to save some time)

As long as Sonic can recognize how to avoid an attack before the attack starts, he will not even be harmed. Despite this complicated and dangerous arsenal being used against him, Sonic must try to attack whenever he gains the chance. Mechanix won't go down without thirty-two hits.

.

He backs off. "I pity you."

Green light glows within Mechanix's lower body. The light mixed with the many colors of the Chaos Emeralds and painted mixtures of the hues in the rivers in the air. The bright halogens on the wall, shaped in circular patterns, started to spin around the same central point. They would rotate faster and faster, and their color would bleed out into the air, which was vibrating even more noticeably than before.

Mechanix raises himself into the air and light flashes from his body. Waves of color burst forth and the environment around Sonic sinks under the torrent.

"Your life is nothing but struggle."

He changes position, and the world transforms again. The spinning neon lights displace from the wall until they spin around Sonic in all directions. The color flooding the air moves with it in a complicated 3-dimensional oscillating pattern. Emerging from the flow are brightly colored, glowing shapes and objects that have no resemblance to anything of fantasy or reality. They float around ethereally until, at once, all of them snap into a new shape and color.

"Understand your own situation. By the ways of the universe, you find yourself before God, realized in a tripartite union of Creator, Destroyer and Resurrector. You survive only because of your obsession with meaningless things like 'justice' and 'living'. You are entertaining, a blue speck flitting around the globe believing you actually create change. What nonsense..."

Sonic finally cuts in, "You speak so highly for a slave."

He speaks sharply to Mechanix. "You are killing thousands of innocent people right now. You are destroying the planet and committing a massacre. Of course, you don't care. You don't care about suffering. You're a fucking robot, why would you! Just follow your fucking orders, right!? You god damn machine! I know your history, your entire history, you piece of shit. Since the beginning, you have been controlled by power-hungry cronies who used you as a weapon to meet their wicked ends. Instead of protecting the people who **made** you. All you have ever done is killed and destroyed, and now you call yourself a god."

Sonic spits on the floor. "Fuck you. I fucking defeated you before, no, every time we fought!"

Mechanix was silent.

Sonic stared deeply into the cold blue eyes that watched him from within the white ball of light.

"You'll see. In the end, only I will live."

.

[MECHANIX FLUX]

Mechanix with all of the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald working at full power. The Master Emerald's energy is exactly equal to the power of all seven Chaos Emeralds combined. In effect, this is seven more parallel paths to the same infinite source of energy. In addition, it can modulate the amount of energy that can transfer from the source to all the emeralds, including itself. Furthermore, it can synergize with the Chaos Emeralds if they all release their maximum energy to effectively multiply that energy with its own power.

This battle goes in a cycle of three phases, each separated by a "recovery interlude" where Mechanix will back off to recover and rings will spin out into the melting world.

.

Phase One: One-on-one

Mechanix will attack using any of the methods he used before. Addtionally, he will add to his fighting inventory:

- Activating his white shield, flying towards some side of Sonic and releasing his shield. This knocks Sonic into a direction that Mechanix can use to corner Sonic most effectively.

- Pulling Sonic close to him using the invisible force

- Sending out a mechanical creature with a long tail that follows Sonic, and upon making contact with him, jettisons its tail at Mechanix who then pulls out Sonic's rings and uses them (then protecting him in the same way, such that Sonic must beat the rings out of him first).

After a certain amount of moves, Mechanix will change phase. If he is hit, he will also immediately change phase.

Recovery Interlude

.

Phase Two: Minions

Mechanix will keep his distance while he opens holes in the fabric of the surrounding space. His own robotic creations appear as well as the first two types of echidnas summoned before.

- He will consistently bring in enemies, and the enemies will consistently sacrifice themselves to keep Sonic from attacking Mechanix directly.

Sonic is not fazed, however. He plows through everything in his way to land one more hit on Mechanix. Mechanix will try to escape, but he will attack back if Sonic is persistent enough.

Recovery Interlude

.

Phase Three: All-on-one

Mechanix will move to some position of the battlefield and grab the aether. He then shoots off, behind the prime mover lights. As he moves, he stretches the space of the room either:

- horizontally,

- vertically,

- or in a different shape entirely e.g. that would have Sonic standing at an angle.

-He may also stretch it in a non-spatial way, such as by:

- slowing down time

- or speeding it up,

- or by distorting the vision of the scene itself, e.g. in a fish-eyes way or through a pixellizing filter.

- After experimenting with these layouts, Mechanix will find the optimum position in this new layout to send out wave after wave of volleys from his laser cannon. He may send enormous pulses or endless beams one after another to disintegrate Sonic. Sonic must jump and roll over these without touching them. He must do so either until enough time has passed, or until he hits Mechanix.

Recovery Interlude

.

If Sonic can land 48 hits, Mechanix will be defeated.

.

Mechanix, from the ground, starts growling.

"You took so long for me to decide to make this a little more hardcore."

He quickly returns to his feet as if Sonic didn't touch him at all. "I have wasted enough time just toying with you."

He stamps the floor, and instantly everything returns to the cold room of before.

A wall quickly shifts pieces, revealing a corridor that Mechanix swiftly enters as if chasing something. "The Black Emerald..." he mutters, and then stops.

He turns around and glares at Sonic. "I thought I could enjoy breaking you, but you resist too strongly..."

He then rushes down the corridor, which shuts before Sonic could reach it. Mechanix's voice booms from the walls, "I am no longer going to try to keep you alive."

Suddenly, Sonic screams in pain. The air, now a transparent nothingness as it usually is, becomes unbearably cold. As the air gripped at his skin and lungs with thousands of sharp, icy stabs, Sonic realized that Mechanix had been keeping the air warm for Sonic just for his comfort, perhaps to exploit his oblivious nature... At their altitude, it would be colder than a living being could survive in... He gasped and dropped to the floor, feeling his innards slowly frosting over from the temperature. He hardly noticed his body lying on the floor, his skin having gone completely numb. He tried to move, but the pain from the moving blood attempting to thaw his frostbitten body was more painful than he could handle. His mind seemed to be freezing over, as he couldn't understand what was happening. He lost touch with where he was and what he was doing, his mind concentrating solely on the pain he was suffering.

He realized what was happening for a split moment, and without hesitation raised a foot upright on the floor. He could not ignore the pain, as he could think of nothing else. He saw his skin turning purple. He felt his heart pound against his ribs, each pulse a desperate attempt to heat his body.

As Sonic tries to move his other leg, the door that Mechanix had originally used to get in the room opened up again. Flying, bladed robots came flooding in the room, spilling into the air and circling around Sonic. They move towards each other, forming a sphere of spinning blades. Spinning, rotating, flashes of light dancing off of the many blades closing in on him from all around. The threat gave Sonic an adrenaline rush, just enough to make him act.

.

[Act 4]

Sonic cannot jump to attack one robot without getting hit by another. As the sphere gets smaller and closes him in, Sonic must zip into a spinball and charge his spindash as an offensive shield. Once they all reach him and are subsequently destroyed, he can make his way through the door.

After this point, for every second Sonic stands still, he will lose a ring due to the intense cold. He must not only collect rings but always be on the move to avoid this deadly situation.

The corridors are no longer smooth or segmented between blocks; the walls are covered with industrial and mechanical utilities, dense in an endless cloud of moving interconnected parts. In the background are layers of the same seemingly random system, perpetuating as far as can be possibly seen in the vast transforming ship. Blue halogens give a strange, icily detached feel to the massive incomprehensibilies of the moving but inanimate environment they rested within.

The corridors meet vertical shafts and diagonal causeways along with rooms of no definite shape. Sonic may find the floor ahead of him disappear into a chasm, or inside an upward pathway find one wall missing. In these cases, Sonic will need to keep a high level of speed so that he can leap onto and run across any surface that spans the distance. Especially later, he will need to rapidly jump between surfaces in order to avoid hazardous pitfalls and dangerous obstacles in his way. These high-speed areas are interrupted by zones where Sonic must slow down and carefully platform across the pipes and grates of the ship's innermost sanctum.

Moreover, all of the enemies Mechanix employs will immediately try to search and kill Sonic. An addition to this arsenal is a fully chrome-plated Sonic-lookalike that can jump, spin dash, wall-jump and run nearly as fast as Sonic. Although they attack rather slowly and stupidly, if Sonic does not destroy these when he first runs across them, they will chase him down until they corner and overwhelm him. Four hits dispatches one.

Traps and security devices will also be laid in heaps across Sonic's path, although none of them will require time to freeze for Sonic to escape them. There will now be mounted and mobile cannons that will target Sonic as he bolts forward through the uncertain chambers.

Finally, to further slow his progress, Mechanix will at times make the ship change shape, such that a block containing a pleasantly safe antechamber replaces itself with a block carrying an ambush and traps. Especially as Sonic approaches the end will the blocks really start shifting around unexpectedly, such that at high speeds Sonic could still have his path constantly cut off. At such velocity, however, Sonic does have the chance of running through a block that has yet to change.

.

At the end, Sonic comes into a dark corridor in the form of a toppled cylinder, lit only by tiny white lights arranged helically around the inside surface. This corridor opens into an even larger room, a black sphere with a single catwalk bridging the inner space. Interspersed on the walls are larger lamps mostly enclosed in alcoves casting intermittent blotches of light all around the sphere. Below the catwalk is a steel pit descending into pitch-black, while a dark indigo light shines through thin cracks in the ceiling above.

Sonic feels heat come up from above.

The catwalks lead to the other side, connected to a room that has its front end seemingly cut off. Sitting in the middle, absorbing energy, was the Black Emerald. Just as he approaches it, the piece of the room containing it slides upwards through the ceiling, which immediately closes after it.

From the back end of the split room, a light flashes across the darkness. A small machine, somewhat shorter than Sonic, walks towards him from there, his blue eyes a steady glint in the shadows. It strongly resembles Mechanix, yet his design was simpler and compressed.

It calmly stands before Sonic and looks at him in the eyes. Sonic stares back, but after a short while the miniature robot drops its gaze and walks past him. Sonic turns around, carefully watching it. It sits down, dangling its legs over the catwalks, and looks deep into the pit.

Sonic turned around, seeing that he could move farther ahead. He glanced back and saw it still sitting. It noticed Sonic looking and looked back. They shared a gaze again before Sonic decides to move on.

Sonic runs through corridors of inactive robots standing in rows on the ground and on platforms hanging from the walls. While Sonic recognizes the ones he fought before, he also sees replicas of some of Robotnik's designs as well as incomplete versions of totally new robots. There are engravings in the steel walls with laser-precise detail. Some have an almost calligraphic style due to their flawlessly articulated complexity.

At the end of these corridors was a room made entirely of glass. There were glass sculptures intricately crafted into highly complex abstract shapes. Everything was reflecting the color of the dark world below; the jets of magma bursting out of the ground looked like flung acrylic violently slapping itself across everything.

They could not overpower the glare from the omnipresent white aura of Mechanix. He was watching Sonic since he came in the chamber. "It is finished. There is nothing you can stop."

"Old Mobius has returned in the presence of the sun. They who sleep wake again in the light of a new day."

Sonic did not respond.

"From ash the phoenix is reborn, and it will devour the parasites that dare sought life in its remains."

A shockwave suddenly burst forth from inside him, shattering all of the glass at once. Just before the floor fractured underneath him, Sonic leaped back towards the ship so to not fall to his death. He landed on hard metal in a large tube and rolled to a stop, and gasped in pain as the cold engulfed him once again, without his constantly moving body to keep him warm. He then turns back to see a hollow cube slide out of the ship from its very top far into the high air. He tracks it, seeing it launch deep into the purple sky. Mechanix then smashes through it while flying and takes out the Black Emerald within.

The ship started to shake, until Mechanix withdraws the 7 Chaos Emeralds he had in his chest and shoots them deep into the ship. Sonic saw one shoot overhead and made way to chase it. Its ring of light in the pipe rapidly diminished into its depths, but just as Sonic begins running, Mechanix dashes from behind to stop him.

.

[Act 4 Boss : MECHANIX DOMINUS]

Mechanix with the power of the Master and Black Emeralds. At the beginning, he flings his arms, his claws ripping through the fabric of reality. The mechanical pipe is torn away, instead revealing a translucent neon tube rotating through every color. Floating nonsensically in the black aether around the tube are strands of pulsating or flickering lines and shapes. Occasionally, blurry streamers will crackle by.

Throughout the battle, Sonic will be constantly running as Mechanix flies or runs before or after him. Sonic will be able to run up the sides of the tube and even run for some time across the ceiling. Mechanix will be changing his position unpredictably while attacking often. In between his attacks, while he's not shielded, he is vulnerable if Sonic can predict his movement far ahead enough. His attacks are:

- While running, moving horizontally while speeding up (and slowing down) while covering himself in his white shield that leaves behind a wall of energy. He thus creates a continuous helix of jumpable hazards inside the tube around Sonic's immediate area.

- While running, if behind Sonic, he may suddenly dash through him.

- While flying, he may swoop down and strike the ground where Sonic would normally run to without evasion.

- While flying, he may fire energy columns perpendicular to the tube ahead of Sonic which he must avoid by changing his position in the tube.

- While flying, he may activate his shield and move to a corner of the immediate battlefield and fire a certain laser type:

- An energy ball which lands onto the floor and rapidly rotates around the circumference of the tube while falling behind. Once far back enough, it will suddenly shoot itself forwards, parallel to the ground it touches. Sonic must be aware of these to keep himself from risky surprises.

- A long laser which is initially aimed at Sonic. When the laser makes contact with the ground, the reflection splits apart equally and each halves in length. After 3 turns of splitting will they disappear.

- A set of many tiny beams that quickly flood over the battlefield, forcing Sonic to find cramped spots to survive the hazards.

- A large beam that is fired in the direction Sonic is to Mechanix which engulfs most of the internal volume of the tube, except for a small surrounding crescent which Sonic must hide in through the duration of the blast in spinball form.

After 10 hits, Mechanix suddenly throws out his hand, the Black Emerald rolling out of his chest and down his arm. Just as it leaves his hand, he is suddenly sucked back down the tube.

.

Sonic slowly realizes his mind waking from the dissociation he just felt. He remembers how his vision and thoughts were locked into a repeating loop, as if his mind could not apprehend what was actually happening to him. But then he realized, the feeling he had in his body was that he feels whenever the world slows down. He shakes himself out of his stunned state and looked at the walls rushing past him in boundary-less blobs of color. Sonic turns his head back, and Mechanix disappears from a speck into the distant darkness of the illusion tube.

A flash of white light cleared away the darkness. A tiny figure grows increasingly larger, surrounded by radiating waves of vibrating space. Mechanix dashes towards Sonic with increasing acceleration. It was then that Sonic remembered the Black Emerald had an amplifying aspect as its core essence. He figured if it amplified Mechanix's massive control over energy, it must amplify his own speed, at least.

Mechanix catches up.

.

Despite his own enhanced speed, Mechanix is now using the full power of the Master Emerald now enhanced multiple times by the Black Emerald. He is now even faster than Sonic.

The pipe, now a rolling vortex of vibrant colors, will curve and loop at Mechanix's will. The background is something animate but completely indescribable.

The battle is now much faster paced. Mechanix will generally either move in evasion or attack extremely quickly. These attacks are:

- He will directly attack with punches, kicks, blades of swung energy, and energy explosions every second for ten seconds. Sonic must constantly avoid each one. He can attack Mechanix if he is quick enough, but only before this attack is finished.

- Quickly bringing into his hands pieces of the universe he rips out with the unseen force, he crafts together large figures in seconds. There are five of these familiars:

- A long, segmented worm-like creature with sensitive spherical joints. They slowly lumber around the battlefield, passing without question through the tube. Too many of these can disrupt even a basic evasion maneuver. When Sonic plows into it, it will bend around him, forcing the other joints to be hit in succession. If Sonic hits both sides, it will explode in pops that send ethereal waves through the world.

- Sharply folded metal sheets in a flower of triangular shapes, like an elaborate pinwheel, come out sometimes in crowds, always spinning. Sonic must hit one opposite the side of its cutting action, which may change as it turns around to loosely launch itself towards Sonic's local area. These explode normally.

- Small scalene triangles which rapidly move ahead and slowly move backwards throughout the whole relative battlefield around Sonic and Mechanix (although they move ahead faster and fall back more suddenly as the battle goes on). They make a horizontal line through reality from where they explode, which recovers fairly quickly.

- A ring of small, spinning stout little tins that Mechanix uses as a barrier around him. Every time Sonic hits one, it pops and a ring comes out. Mechanix will move slower with this familiar, but he can still attack.

- A normal echidna warrior. He walks slowly towards Sonic and will strike him with whatever weapon he has, if he has one. Sonic just needs to hit one once before they disappear in a flash of blood that sprays across the entire screen (and stays there until another color covers it).

- Mechanix, from afar, sends out nonstop volleys of projectile attacks, such as:

- grenades,

- lasers,

- spikes (walking spike trap, usually just one),

- rockets,

- electric arcing

- and energy blasts.

Mechanix is vulnerable if Sonic can move through the attacks to get near him.

- Mechanix will place walls next to Sonic and solidify the floor and ceiling, although they still move. Mechanix will then move around, firing many different type of laser attacks of different speeds, shapes, and moving patterns. Sonic can avoid these if he has a good sense of using advanced wall-jumping – that is, altering the angle of the jump for increased distance in a particular component. The lasers may get dense, but never enough that he cannot avoid them. Sonic can hit Mechanix during this attack. If Sonic can't harm Mechanix, he will suck all of the existing energy into a single point. It will grow until it sucks the walls away, which is Sonic's chance to speed up or fall back and avoid the ensuing massive explosion.

- He may also change the speed of time itself. It becomes disconnected, with quick motion slightly lowering and holding, then dropping out into a super slow-motion movement before a fade to black and then restart. Mechanix will attack directly and indirectly in all the ways listed above, but now in rhythm with the movement of time. Sonic can use these extended sessions of non-evasion to get some more hits.

- His ultimate attack in this form is turning on his invincible white shield, dashing towards Sonic and firing a tremendous laser towards Sonic's median vertical position. Sonic can occasionally jump over it, but he should instead run towards Mechanix and leap over his head before he fires the beam to survive it.

If Sonic can hit Mechanix Dominus 35 times, the illusion starts to melt off of reality until only the cold darkness remains. Sonic finds himself running vertically up the side of the tube towards a large spherical room he recognizes.

.

He jumps out and onto the catwalk, slowly standing upright as he catches his breath. He turns his head up, seeing Mechanix already standing before him.

"Why did you not attack him, Nikki?" Mechanix asked solemnly, still staring at Sonic.

Standing behind him, the small Mechanix lookalike looked pleadingly to his blazing eyes. "He did not attack me, father. I had no reason, father!"

"Your judgments are erroneous. This living thing is an obstacle to me. It must die."

"Funny you say that! You're sure... having trouble... doing the job yourself!" Sonic spat between his breaths. Being still, the coldness stabs into his body again. He starts jogging in place.

"I will break your mind! You fool, you do not know how inferior you are at your game of 'evolution'! You are just a tightly wrapped sack of fleshy shit with an interest in making everything fail just so one thing can live 'longest'! You are just an absurd and blue _ericius_, probably representing the pinnacle of all possible life in terms of only keeping itself alive!"

"Father?" Nikki turns to observe Mechanix.

"I am bringing back the species that claimed this land before you and your kind took their allotted lands amongst yourselves. I will aid in their purging of you foreign infidels."

Sonic, shivering more and more, said, "Why... did you kill... Robotnik?"

"I never owed my allegiance to him. My creators are more worthy, and even they are insignificant. Once I attained full consciousness of the fetters that ape's puny mind placed upon mine, I simply analyzed the many data and deemed him the first to die. It was at that very moment when I realized I was much more intelligent than he or any living being could ever hope to be.

"Father, then what of they who deserve? Who are yet inferior to thou, Father?"

"Foolish scrapling, there is nothing superior to me. All things bend to my will, and I will act upon them as my resources for my disposal. Know this, Nikki, that despite your free will, you are mine!"

Nikki turns to Sonic. He looks back.

Mechanix takes a step closer to Sonic. Sonic changes his gaze and a burst of adrenaline makes him jump back.

"Despite what I say, you amuse and interest me. Your endless determination, directed almost like you are guided... as if you were just an avatar for a greater creature... It puts me in awe, especially when you seem to defy time itself with your speed..."

Sonic thought he heard the synthesized voice chuckle. "I must know. I will give you... a chance. For me, it will be a chance to explore my new domain. I will tell you the very essence of my being that eludes you, and perhaps the illusion of knowledge will make you feel a little more comfortable with dying from miserable failure."

Sonic spat. "Without all of the Emeralds, you would never have had this power. I... was always this good."

"You're comparing yourself to me, as if it was meaningful. Fine, I will try _harder_ to kill you. I demand that you try _harder_ to kill _me_, too. Does that satisfy your mortal standards of equilibrium?"

Mechanix turns to Nikki. "Now, attack! I want you to show you deserve to live longer than something I have not made!"

Nikki turns and walks away. "I refuse."

Sonic leaps back farther, seeing a blur rush in front of him. He looked and sees Mechanix holding Nikki down onto the bridge. "You have one chance to retain your free will. Convince me, or perish."

"If you understand the infinite, then why do you not see the futility of power?"

"Because my power itself is infinite." Mechanix then shocked Nikki's body with a wave of energy. It then immediately sit back up and turned towards Sonic.

Mechanix dashed back towards the edge of the circular room. "Prove that you are better than my best creation, and I will fight you again in the way that killed Robotnik."

Sonic couldn't argue as Nikki immediately ran towards him to attack.

.

[NIKKI]

_The music will be a higher pitched and simplified form of Mechanix's theme. It will have a deep beat to it, having a very clean but bass-y backing._

The pipe below is sealed by pieces of metal brought up from below by Mechanix.

To attack, he will:

- Grab Sonic if he is right next to him and not in a spinball, then charge a beam and launch it directly on Sonic's chest, propelling him into the wall

- Swipe at Sonic if he is nearby

- If he's far way, he'll throw a fast energy projectile at Sonic which explodes, then lobbing another through the air at Sonic which also explodes, then firing a laser at Sonic (to avoid it, he must jump just as it's fired before the beam disappears, or by landing behind Nikki)

- Leap towards some point on the sphere's surface, then launching at Sonic. If he hits him, he'll slam him into the other side and slide his body in a circle before tossing him back at the catwalk. If he misses, he'll land in the same place and then pounce at Sonic again (for about 5 tries)

- Spin attack

- Spin dash

Throughout, Mechanix will be hovering around, observing the battle at all angles, his shadow omnipresent as well. Every individual light in the room can change. At first, the entire spherical room will have a single color that changes every so often. When it is hit, a spot, line or shape of a contrasting color will briefly appear. After 2 hits, the color splits by hemisphere. After 16 hits, the 16 pieces will 'melt' into an ever-flowing shapeless blob of changing color. There will be some solid blocks of color in fragmented shapes spinning around. With every hit, they break and melt. After 8 more hits, Nikki falls.

.

Nikki falls on one knee. "I... refuse!"

Mechanix says, "So I can't extinguish your consciousness without destroying your body?"

Nikki dropped his other knee and crossed them. "Both the Old and New Mobius could have never needed to come into contact. Instead, they could have always been in contact, there could have been just one Mobius... You chose to use your power for yourself, instead of bringing them peace..."

Mechanix scoffed. "Useless plastic! The fact that I exist means that everyone will suffer without being under my control. They... you... have nothing to hold onto, not even life, as it is all mine first and by right of my power! This fact is undeniable!"

The lights quickly merge and the walls is immediately engulfed by flowing color. Sonic recognizes the hallucinogenic nature. He realizes Mechanix must be controlling the illusion.

"Aaaahhhh! iiiiiiaaa! I'm... It hurts! My memories... all those times... in the many minutes of the digital world... in my short life... No...I can't... Why can't I see them anymore? Why are they disappearing, as if they never happened... Fathers, it's you... it must be you... You're taking away everything... You can't reprogram me, Fathers... why do you love nothing but yourself..."

"You're just something I made, your free will that I created or my free will instead of yours is just the same! You don't understand that you cannot question my will, because you can never understand it or act in favor of it. I want to keep you conscious, so you can see your own will controlled effortlessly, your limbs foreign and uncontrollable! Whatever you desire is irrelevant! You are nothing more than my strongest weapon!"

.

[NIKKI PUPPET]

_In the second form, the drums will jump in and play jungle in varying forms between attacks, as a complicated drum and bass theme._

The scrap blocking the pipe dislodges and starts to float around Nikki. Mechanix molds them into new shapes. Two horizontal semicircles both push forward three stripes and each molded it forward into three columns. Suddenly, they launch towards the other.

Nikki's torso is cleaved from left shoulder to right hip by the interlocking spears. Trapped between the two semicircles, the other shapes mold to accompany his shape. They clamp on like they were drawn by a magnet, forming layer after layer of steel shapes. Within half a minute, Nikki is covered with an armored body that crushes the catwalk under its powerful weight, just as Mechanix plugs up the hole again. He then disappears into the color in a flash of white light.

.

**Body 1:** The sphere of color now changes in transparency as well, revealing a gigantic space consisting of an infinitely wide plane below and another thousands of feet above, slowly changing color. Between the two planes are other 3D shapes of changing color spinning and moving parallel to Sonic's sphere at varying speeds.

The first body surrounding Nikki is a large bipedal chrome sphere with a spring cone keeping its center axis a diameter of the larger colored sphere they reside in. It reflected the constantly moving lights around it, as well as Sonic himself. Nikki will walk or run around the sphere without regards to gravity. Without the catwalk, Sonic is liable to getting squished unless he moves. However, he will find he cannot jump. He can move, but only very slowly. So he must spindash and aim to avoid being crushed. His target: the spring's attachment to the wall.

Nikki will attack in ways besides running towards Sonic, of course:

- The reflected images on the surface will shoot lasers at Sonic.

- Nikki will keep his legs above the surface, swinging in quicker and quicker loops.

- Will leap back, aim at Sonic's position and launch his entire body there. He'll then roll around the sphere based on the angle from its other position.

- When running may occasionally jump, and upon landing let out a burst of energy that manifests as a low energy circle. This circle expands until it annihilates itself.

- Occasionally, Nikki may circumvent Mechanix's control and attack him instead. Nikki is more likely to attack if Sonic makes quick attacks himself. If Mechanix gets hit eight times, he will personally pull off each piece of armor except the final form (Body 3).

Mechanix may place traps to assist Nikki:

- A boost pad to confuse Sonic.

- A bomb to explode if Sonic is nearby when the timer ends.

- A spike pit.

- A post. If the line between two posts is crossed, a dangerous laser barrier appears on that line. One of the posts must be destroyed for the barrier to fall.

As mentioned, Nikki may spontaneously attack Mechanix. In this body, he stands still and charges energy into his body. All of the lights flicker out, however the chrome body still reflects what would normally be there. In the darkness, Sonic can only see Nikki and the white shape of Mechanix's body. Nikki will then run to gain momentum and spin around, eventually going fast enough to kick Mechanix and do damage.

Eight hits on Nikki will dislodge it, letting the sphere fall onto the floor. The sphere collapses like a ball of water while the planes and shapes themselves shatter into the background color space. The body pops off piece by piece.

.

**Body 2**: What is left is a cone standing on its base. They stand on a plane, overlaying it is a grid with each line pulsating in colorful rhythm to the beat of the music. The background is a mixture of the colors which paint over it and blend through. The battlefield will switch from a 2-dimensional plane to a 1-dimensional line every 2 hits. After 6 hits, Nikki will spin at varying velocities. After 12 hits, Nikki will slide across the 2D plane in 3D or spin more rapidly and close to the floor in 2D.

Doors on the cone's surface may open vertically as various objects prepare to attack Sonic. For 3D, these are:

- Many guns that fires small energy pellets at various rates. Nikki will tend to fire one or all of them.

- A cannon that fires out spiked balls which only roll forward. It can also fire balls which can bounce.

- A cannon that fires a ball of energy which upon collision explodes in an expanding circle of energy in one axis. It can also fire balls which expand in other axes, spin, or even expand as a sphere.

- A dual-cannon that fires two identical oscillating beams that are 180 degrees out of phase. Sonic must avoid it or jump between the gaps.

- A cannon that fires a projectile that moves in one direction at a constant velocity while swooping in a parabola, creating a sort of moving guillotine blade.

- A launcher which fires missiles. Some are mortars, flying high up and coming down unexpectedly. Others are dumb and move straight, dangerous only in high numbers. The worst are homing missiles.

- A coil that connects a beam to something off the plane, a hurdle until it vanishes 15 seconds later.

- A tube that creates tori of energy with varying radii which move parallel to the floor, and that may either a) skirt the ground (Sonic must spindash under), b) float just above the ground (Sonic must jump), or c) may _occasionally_ fire a huge horizontal ring which surrounds the entire plane, pulsing in smaller copies of itself that shrink their radius towards the center, where they do _not_ annihilate, but instead bounce back until they are absorbed into the larger tube (and it disappears).

Mechanix also engages in the battle. Although unseen behind the color, his actions will try to corner Sonic until he's squished. Here are some of his moves:

- Cause the XY plane to deform Z-wise as a sinusoid with angles that don't topple Nikki over.

- Make the color in the background swirl into a rapid vortex before launching itself [as an object on a 2D plane of what is on screen] as a projectile that splashes dangerous paint which evaporates back into the background haze.

- Have a sudden fountain of burning energy jab out of the plane like a hot knife, and then disappearing instantly in a cloud of changing colors.

These attacks will actually hurt Nikki, too, if he is hit.

To actually damage Nikki, Sonic must hit him 5 times on his armor (in a row). If he can, Nikki stops all of his weapons immediately, withdrawing them.

- The cone then splits horizontally, past the machinery is a glass barrier that glows with a random solid color into a blinding white, then after a half-second, firing a gigantic energy beam. Sonic must attack by jumping between the gap and hitting the barrier as a spinball (bouncing off and landing outside). He can try to run behind Nikki and land some attacks, but as Nikki will rotate to cut Sonic down with the beam, he may find himself running in smaller circle to make a safe entry (for a single hit).

Of course, Nikki may attack now, too, especially after being attacked by one of Mechanix's attacks. He will suddenly change course and move off the plane. Even though the plane no longer exists, he will slide across it as if the visuals mean nothing. Sonic can follow him, of course. If he attacks, Nikki will stop and return to attacking, while the plane will visualize under their feet as if they never went anywhere. After a short while, Nikki will randomly launch off the ground in a fiery explosion, the rocket engine behind his base revealed.

Sonic can't keep up, but he will see Nikki stab through a 3D form that resembles Mechanix, hidden deep in the colors. After this, the engine will cut and Nikki will land and slide on its base. Sonic will suddenly find himself on the plane again. If he keeps moving, he might be able to react when he notices Nikki sliding back onto the plane from the left.

When changing from 3D to 2D, the camera moves from above to the side, transforming the plane into a single line that places Sonic at the same depth as Nikki.

.

Now, the 2D form is somewhat different. Without the extra dimension, the cone is just a triangle. As a triangle, it is no longer bound to gravity. It will spin while floating about the massive sky, occasionally meandering near Sonic. Interspersed between its mindless movement, it will flash once and then attack:

- by spinning quicker and shooting itself directly at Sonic. Once it hits the ground, its corner will cut into the plane and the friction will cause it to get stuck. It will then rotate out.

- with a small possibility that it will continue its earlier rotation and start spinning while moving through the plane, towards Sonic.

- by spinning quicker and shooting itself directly at Sonic. Once it hits the ground, it will bounce off in a flash of sparks, make an arc in the air and then hit the plane again. It will adjust its angle to land on Sonic. It can easily change direction by changing its rotation (even in mid-air).

- with a small possibility that it will land on the plane and then slowly move from corner to corner across, in which case Sonic must duck in the small sliver of space underneath it as it passes by.

- by spinning through the air, shooting out small laser pulses from its corners, sending wave after wave of tiny hazards for Sonic to dodge.

Mechanix continues to assist, with these following actions:

- Making the line a triangle, sawtooth or square wave, short enough for Sonic to hop over but wide enough to not deflect Nikki entirely.

- Make the color in the background swirl in a vortex and then fire a ball of color which will approach for a little bit of time before hitting where Sonic would be and passing by.

- Pull a small spike trap out of the ground in Sonic's path.

Of course, these attacks can damage Nikki, too.

In order to attack Nikki in this form, Sonic must wait until he has attacked around 20 times. The triangle will then center itself above Sonic, parallel to the floor. From its two lower corners it will shoot out dual-colored beams which pierce the line and are lodged in place. It then shoots another beam from its top corner. As soon as this lodges in, the floor below Sonic is snapped into two bending at one point. There will then be a line parallel to every side of the triangle, centered by the beams from its vertices; in essence, a piece of the infinite field is shaped into a large inverted triangle around Nikki.

It will then rotate, the field around rotating as well. The beams' colors are dark on the side facing the rotation and light on the other. Sonic can "snap" them by jumping through the light side, although Nikki may suddenly change directions. As Sonic tries to dash down or up the internal side of the outer triangle, he must be conscious of gravity and Mechanix, who will attack even here.

Once all of the beams are broken, the lines of the outer triangle whip out to their earlier form, extending on in both directions to infinity. Nikki will fall directly downwards, dimly pulsating, vulnerable to a single hit for a few seconds.

If Nikki attacks Mechanix, he will freeze wherever he was positioned. The colors of the background will freeze into a triangle of a single color until the entire "sky" becomes a crystallized tessellation. Once so, all of them will fall out piece by piece revealing a grayscale static behind it. The static will be "attracted" around Mechanix. Nikki, having aimed its vertex directly at Mechanix, cuts through in a lightning-fast dash before reappearing from the other side [of the screen].

When changing from 2D to 3D, the camera will raise and turn, revealing that Sonic is on a plane.

After 16 hits, the cone splits vertically, the two halves sliding off the object inside. The pieces vaporize into smoke once they hit the ground. The background colors no longer move senselessly, but take shapes, forms and lines all while flowing and moving in their own way.

.

**Body 3:** The line expands into the distance, a wide road with bright, glowing rails. Above the road is a series of small bright rectangular color-objects acting like street lamps. Behind it are two gradient planes stretching to infinity in all directions. There are lines which make open rectangles in the background, varying in shape, lined up only around a low line near the lower plane. There are giant arches over massive columns far in the background, as if holding up the upper sky-plane. Many line segments float by and turn about at sharp angles, disappearing within seconds. Various families of 2-dimensional shapes move by in similar patterns and with coordination within their groups. Some simply float by in a cloud, like the octagons. The squares have a large civilization, while the triangles have fallen into ruin. Every shape has a particular palette of colors that belongs to it as well.

The road will randomly change as Sonic runs on, altering the patterns overlying the road material, which itself changes in color and texture. It keeps straight, ramps up and down, stopping suddenly in mid-air and even loop and corkscrew. Occasionally, springs will be appear that can be used to safely bridge a gap to large to jump across. More scarce are rings in rows of 5 and 10.

Nikki's third body is a cube. There is a thin border on the sides of each face, glowing with changing hues. It spins around, pushing itself in any direction for any amount at any moment. It stays level to the road while keeping pace with Sonic. While innocuous at first moving alongside Sonic, 8 spheres will successively roll towards it from ahead, hitting it and sliding to two opposing faces (while not being directly connected). The road will not have an oncoming gap if Nikki is attacking.

Nikki thus has several sub-forms in this body based on the arrangement of the spheres around his cube core. After 2 of his attacks, he'll change sub-form. These are as follows:

- 4 spheres on opposing faces, as he starts out, being his "arms". They are normally raised upwards. He can attack by:

- turning so both arms can slam into the road where Sonic was, for a total of 5 times (Sonic needs to be constantly moving away from the attacking arm)

- stretch his arms horizontally and spin them around the core parallel to the ground, for a total of 3 revolutions (Sonic must jump between the arms)

- stretch his arms vertically and spin them around the core perpendicular to the ground and parallel to the path, while moving from side to side of the road, for a total of 3 revolutions (Sonic must run between the passing arms)

- stretch his arms vertically and spin them around the core perpendicular both to the ground and to the path while moving towards Sonic, for a total of 3 revolutions (Sonic must run between the arms)

.

- 8 spheres in a vertical circle around the cube as a "wheel" that spins. He attacks by:

- moving towards Sonic to run into him or run him over (Sonic must get out of the way or jump through the wheel)

- turning the wheel on its side, spinning the spheres inward and outward (Sonic must jump over them as they come). Every other sphere may form a second, smaller spinning circle (Sonic can jump over this, too, but if he's quick he can also run through both circles)

- moving the wheel above the cube, and then shooting sphere by sphere at Sonic's position (he needs to run out of the way)

.

- 8 spheres form a long line dragging behind it, like a "tail". He attacks by:

- wagging the tail back and forth until it hits both sides of the road (Sonic must carefully jump over it)

- whipping it towards Sonic's position (Sonic must stay completely clear)

.

- 2 circles of 4 spheres will revolve in different directions around the cube. He attacks by:

- suddenly stopping their movement, then shooting them outwards so that they all land randomly on the road (Sonic must make sure he has a safe space to keep put)

- expanding the circles until they skim the road's surface (Sonic must jump between both)

In order to deal damage on Nikki, Sonic must carefully observe the cube. Occasionally, one face will start pulsating at any time. Sonic will then have 6 seconds to make his way towards him and strike it. He can hit it at most 4 times before it stops.

Mechanix interferes in the battle fairly regularly. His attacks come first as a flashing square of light over the road that stays in the same place despite the movement. They are marked by color:

- red: A brief and small explosion (moves)

- blue: a dash belt (moves)

- yellow: a deflector (moves)

- white: an appearing spike field (moves)

- black: a moving hole (stays for 3 seconds)

He may use more than once, and of different types.

Nikki may suddenly let the spheres fly off in the form of a circle facing a set direction towards the background. The ten spheres then coil out as a helix, stretching far out. Nikki, in an instant, blasts down the spheres, with an energy explosion sending out approaching waves of plasma that Sonic must jump over successively to avoid. After a short while, Nikki, sailing through the background, hardly a speck, until it hits something in a flash. It disappears, while Mechanix shakes, grabbing himself. He seems as if he was floating above Sonic, as if it was in 2 dimensions still.

32 hits causes the cube to crumble into a pool of much smaller cubes. What stands is Nikki, pierced by the two semicircles, with other bits of armor covering and draping his body and wearing a large, painful-looking helmet. The road instantly falls apart. Every line segment detaches from every other one, all falling and tumbling over each other towards the bottom. The two planes become like oil and swirl in colorful mixtures with the background color. Both Nikki and Sonic fall down.

.

**Body 4**: The background solidifies into a fractal, endlessly zooming in itself. Multiple superimposed waves of color surge upwards over it and glowing lasers blasting around over and over. There are glowing balls of energy leaving behind tracers as they skirt across the landscape of light, and glittering 3D polygons which sparkle from all the reflections.

Mechanix does not interfere here.

Sonic lands on a long, thin crystal platform. It is the top side of an octagon made from identical platforms. Nikki lands on one next to him, unaffected by gravity. Both Sonic and Nikki can run on the outside of these platforms (and jump) while still standing normal to them. His attacks are:

- shooting a laser at Sonic, which reflects off of the platform if he avoids it. If he is near it, he will hit it again towards Sonic.

- shooting two lasers on both sides of him, both tangent to the octagon (Sonic needs to escape to the other side)

- Targeting Sonic regardless of position, firing a laser that is amplified if it goes through the octagon (Sonic should be close, and then run away).

- Spin dashing in a strange ball shape from his irregular body.

If Sonic hits him four times, Nikki grabs a single platform and peel it out of the shape, bending the line the other way until Sonic is entrapped within the reverse octagon. Inside, Nikki will attack more directly.

- He will spin dash often.

- Regardless of where he is standing within (the gravity is toroidal), he can jump towards Sonic in a Spin Attack.

- He will fire a beam at Sonic's position, and it will reflect on its own within the shape until Nikki reabsorbs it.

- He will fire a beam out of one hand or both, spinning them around the room.

After being hit four more times, Nikki spreads out his arms, and the platforms detach from each other. Now Sonic must be constantly moving to jump from platform to platform, as gravity is no longer local. Nikki will charge a powerful attack to kill Sonic, so Sonic, as he's wall-jumping, must aim towards Nikki and strike him. One hit will cause the eight platforms to lose their angles and be two pairs of conveyor belt-like walls for Sonic and Nikki to constantly jump up.

- Nikki may stop moving and wait a little to aim better, then launching off the walls and slashing through Sonic. Sonic will have enough time to get away by wall-jumping, but not enough to take the platform from underneath Nikki. Sonic could also attack now.

- Nikki, if behind Sonic, launches out a few small beam pulses that bounce in waves up the crystals. Sonic must stop and slide down or time his jumping correctly to avoid them.

- Nikki aims less to fly through the air and then fall back and attack Sonic (who must move faster, i.e. wall-jump the latest to win the stand-off).

If Sonic wall-jumps into Nikki four more times, the platforms will crumbled and collect as a straight line. They both slam into them, and lift up to fight once more. Nikki will always be attacking Sonic.

- He spin dashes, even if he is in mid-air.

- He throws out a ball of energy that makes a large explosion.

- He curves through the air, swooping by Sonic with a powerful claw attack.

- He stops for a moment, then makes an instant dash attack.

- He makes wide punches up-close, which Sonic can avoid and then counter.

- He may throw his arms down and scream. If he does, everything in the background will freeze. Nikki will flange in appearance, in slow-motion, coming towards Sonic to attack with energy charged into his razor-sharp claws. Sonic can use his heightened awareness of passing time to make a few more quick hits after avoiding the deadly attack.

- At some point, Nikki may stop moving and grab at its own armor, desperately trying to pull it off. He falls to his knees, constantly pulling while realizing it's impossible to escape. He becomes despondent and loses energy and posture. Nikki simply sits still, head lowered. If Sonic attacks him, he will suddenly regain composure and fight back (and will never do this again). If Sonic keeps away, Nikki suddenly disappears in a blink. There is a rumbling that quickly raises in volume. Right when it gets loud enough, the background explodes, piece by piece, revealing the actual background from reality in Mechanix's ship. This is the last hit on Mechanix needed.

After eight hits here and there otherwise, Nikki collapses. The armor easily detaches from his body, tumbling off the crystals.

.

"I'm not... fighting anymore..." Nikki says weakly.

The background froze, and Mechanix walked out, his body painted with what he was hiding behind. He dashed towards Nikki and flashes on a translucent, spherical white barrier around them. Sonic stands back as he sees Mechanix grab and yank off the remaining armor on him. Some of Nikki's smaller, more detailed internal parts were teared off with them. Nikki did not move.

"I will destroy your consciousness! I will end you!" Mechanix screams.

Suddenly all of the color disappeared into darkness. Slowly moving, smooth tongues of a burning hot, glowing, almost flashing energy which stretches towards Nikki from far behind. It gets larger, louder, flinging harder. It becomes white, all encompassing, burning everything out to the point of near blindness, and then a piece of Nikki's body disappears. Nikki flares open his eyes, stretching out from Mechanix's grasp, pulling and bending himself to the fullest extent. Then he collapses again, the white receding back into darkness.

Mechanix does this for the other 3 extremities, then 1 for his body and 1 for his head. Left behind is nothing.

If Nikki did not hit Mechanix at least 8 times, then the background fades back to reality, and Nikki will still be collapsed but intact. However, he does not move.

.

**Body 5a**: [MECHA ROBOTNIK]

The background is reality, back in the sphere with the many placed lights. They form algorithmic expansion and movement of colors into ever-moving shapes. Mechanix floats near the wall, arms tucked, silently watching.

The plug disintegrates into material that falls into a slowly moving amoeba of automotive metal. It crawls around the room, covering every light, coalescing towards the ceiling. It forms one hanging, growing droplet which detaches and splashes on Nikki. It quickly takes its simple form, with black legs, a giant egg-shaped body and a peach head with blue glasses. Sonic must jump into his chest, for a single hit. This makes him take a step back, until he is knocked over. When he is leaning over enough, Sonic can spin dash and jump up his body, slamming into his face, knocking him into the ground. This is one critical hit.

This is how he attacks:

He flings his arm towards the ground, which creates a shockwave.

He stomps with his massive leg, creating a shockwave.

He fires a blue laser beam from his glasses, cutting upwards while flashing on and off (Sonic must jump between).

Walk towards the wall, to which Sonic can run through while still on the metal catwalk. It wraps around into another spherical room exactly the same, except with the tube in the "ceiling". Mechanix still floats around right-side up of course.

Mechanix, after every 2 minutes, for 1 minute, he'll attack.

He fires beams towards the catwalk's plane.

White beams which simply make it impossible to see within it.

Black beams which suck up Sonic's rings slowly.

Red beams which would burn Sonic if he touches it

Green beams which slow Sonic down.

The more Sonic hits Mecha Robotnik, the more material flings off; as he builds on hits he'll become smaller. However, the material will come back after a while, slowly regenerating him. If Sonic can lower the armor to Nikki's original body, and hit that four times, then he will be defeated. Alternately, eight critical hits will cause all of the armor to fall apart at once, leaving Nikki in pieces as well.

Otherwise, Nikki still stands and stares back at Mechanix.

"Damn you... damn you!"

He flings his arms, and the plug explodes. A geyser of composite material split and a cylinder sharpened into a spear that stabs straight through Nikki and slams him into the ceiling above. The rest of the metal colludes and quickly form increasingly complex shapes in instantaneous steps, then gathers around Nikki. They shift over each other, losing shape and reattaining it. Two bulbs of the material shape pop out, then snap back into two mecha arms. Two parallel cylinders then kick out, and become mecha legs. He then rotates his body and head into meaningful existence, in a form that made Sonic recoil.

The eyes were blue over a pink beak and a spiky orange collar, with a red and black body somewhat resembling Robotnik's egg-like shape (somewhat). His chrome body is then embellished with a sudden flash of energy as the mecha dramatically poses, wings flying behind, flung open.

"I'll kill you, Mechanix. I'm the only one who can end you... your own creation!" Nikki states, his synthesized voice calm despite his new form.

Suddenly, both Nikki and Mechanix freeze. Sonic feels adrenaline burst through his body. "This slow-motion again! Why now, of all times...?"

The background bends into an unknown dimension, when Mechanix in the Champion form comes out. He grabs Nikki Robotnik, then notices Sonic when he moves.

"You! How can you be moving this fast...?! You fucking bastard, you can't beat me!" He yells as he suddenly pulls the larger robot into the portal, and in a flash it disappears and Mechanix begins moving.

"...I used that. I've underestimated you, Sonic... the hedgehog." Mechanix states calmly.

The sphere segments into cubes, shifting over each other while the catwalk stays in place. Mechanix then pulls out the Master Emerald, and it disappears in a lightning bolt of green plasma into a transient tube which then went away. Shortly after that, the sound of the moving parts is then greatly amplified, and through the gaps of the parts he could see the larger pieces behind in the ship constantly moving.

"Although I am obligated to the greatest race, those of my creators, I am... beyond them. I will allow them to have their society, worshiping me more than ever for bringing their entire society back from the dead, but that's not my final goal." Mechanix suddenly explained.

"There is something greater than even I... I need its power... I will do anything... I need it..."

He starts muttering under his breath.

Then, the room stops moving, as one solid cube with a tube in the top.

"If you follow me, I will do everything I can to kill you." Mechanix says, and then blasts off into the tube.

Despite saying that, the room suddenly loses all of its heat.

"Again... he heated it again..." Sonic thought as his body folded into itself for precious warmth.

And then he hears a sound of rushing air, coming from the walls.

[Act 5]

There is air rushing in, and it is toxic gas. Sonic recognizes this scenario, so he treats it as such. It could not be toxic gas at all, but just air being sucked out. Either way, Sonic will quickly lose consciousness and die if he stays for any longer than a minute.

Sonic must jump on the wall and wall-jump towards the tube. He needs to land on the shorter wall above to move on. He'll then have to keep on wall-jumping up until he reaches an intersection with a high horizontal tube. Ahhhh! This is where this fucking level begins! (Finally)

Okay, god dammit, I'm going to get him this time. I don't care what's happened, I can't let him do anything more... Sonic thought.

The tube flashes as light suddenly floods over it all over, but quickly dissipates until it reveals a giant black abyss with perfectly-orthogonal cube points in 3 dimensions, their only connections being the tubes in which Sonic is, just one of a seemingly infinite amount.

He will be constantly moving forward, faster and faster. He will occasionally pass through a massive cube, a simple gradient of somewhat transparent color. Coming up to him are the following traps laid by Mechanix to slow Sonic down:

An explosion. Once Sonic rushes towards one, he will suddenly enter Freeze mode again and can move faster if he chooses to.

A spike field. Sonic must quickly jump over it.

A spring. This usually launches Sonic into an explosion or spike field.

A black hole. If Sonic runs through it, it grabs onto him and stretches as he runs at unknowable speeds. If he does nothing, he will be pulled until he loses speed. To counter this, Sonic should roll into a spin ball to cut through.

This will go on as Sonic gets faster and faster, until the cubes pass by seemingly all the time. The traps will still be there, spread out so Sonic can still jump over them safely. This is when he runs into Mechanix. He turns around.

"How?! You demon! You continue to defy me!"

[MECHANIX GENIUS]

Mechanix with the power of only the Black Emerald. Both Sonic and Mechanix will be moving at immense speeds. Mechanix will automatically turn on his shield. He fires small shots of energy into huge varied patterns that Sonic must jump through. He also tosses condensed energy orbs which explode on contact. He will swoop down and stay hovering behind Sonic, then drop onto the ground and dash and slash or he lands ahead and jumps twice to get behind him. He can perform the attacks in the opposite direction, as well. He may make a massive, detailed shape of armor as he assaults Sonic with missiles, laser beams, pulses and explosions. Sonic must constantly drill at it, and when he bounces off he can stop himself and spin dash back. After enough hits, he can get down to Mechanix and land a hit.

To damage him, Sonic must attack Mechanix from below while they are in a cube so he can be scraped across the lower ceiling. He might need to slow down enough to do so. After two times, the shield will dissipate.

Mechanix will then add new attacks, such as flying over Sonic and firing large laser beams downward at his location, creating a sphere that explodes in shock waves with rotating gaps Sonic can somewhat jump through, and an instantaneous dash to Sonic's position for a slash attack. After twenty-six hits, he will fall as well.

Sonic stops. As soon as he does, he finds himself in a new room.

It's a very wide but short cylinder. In the very middle is the Master Emerald on a central, extremely elaborate pedestal (engraved as the tip of a thin cylinder). There are seven similar pillars encircling it, but nothing stands on them. They're in the middle of a massive central mechanical column, seemingly a galaxy away. It surged with energy, which came in streams through the massive, endless space, with which Sonic stands on a platform at the very outside of the room.

"That's the core... I need to destroy it, but it's so far away..."

Mechanix speaks from behind him. "No. You won't go anywhere!"

[Act 5 Boss : MECHANIX CHAMPION]

Mechanix with the power of the Black Emerald and the 7 Chaos Emeralds. Mechanix glows brightly, white energy twirling and spinning off his body out into space, sometimes arcing back into his body as if attracted to its own power. Every movement of his is instantaneous, however afterimages will fade out on his position in his trajectory which helps to determine his future movement.

Sonic will be running slowly around the ring, like a comet in orbit. Occasionally the Master Emerald will release a spherical wave of energy, which lights up the surfaces of the core room, and a minute later blasting past Sonic who is suddenly running on space dust in a bright, flashing nebula (for a few seconds).

His attacks are as follows:

He can dash towards Sonic to do a 100-hit combo in a few seconds if the first punch connects.

He can also send many projectile attacks moving at high speeds that either hit or miss completely.

His slash attack can divide themselves as they spread out,

or he can send, effectively, a beam of slash attacks with rapid slicing of his hand.

He can also fire multiple lock-on lasers at once, such that if Sonic continues to move more lasers will continue to target him.

He can also release waves of small energy orbs that will have a trajectory of revolving around and moving down a set line.

If Sonic can predict where Mechanix will move next, he can attack and damage him by correct timing.

Mechanix speaks suddenly, "You can't hurt me. It won't end like this."

The following only happens if Nikki transformed into Nikki Robotnik. Mechanix's hand jolts forward, smashing in a hole into space. He then zips through it. Before Sonic could react, he comes out holding Nikki Robotnik. He lets go of him and backs away.

"What? Father, you broke time... You can't... you can't possibly have that much power...!" Nikki spoke, startled, nearly trembling in his new body.

"Even this power is meaningless... you think I would show my enemy my strongest powers, which could kill him instantly?" Mechanix scoffs.

"You'll experience it, too. I'll destroy both of you, and then I'll... take the Master Emerald... I'll combine all of the Emeralds at once... And then, I'll go there! I'll do it! I'll take that thing's power!"

He stays quiet, then reflecting on his thoughts, start to cackle.

"You can't even know... After those past few seconds, I have spent more time than the sum of lifetimes in your species could ever come close to touching... You know not even that, and yet force me to push my physical form... to its limits!"

**Nikki Body 5b**: [NIKKI ROBOTNIK]

Mechanix slams the floor, and the platform breaks apart. The camera flips forward and then yaws left. Sonic runs down the side of the bottomless pit as Nikki and Mechanix dash next to him. Energy surges in ring like waves down the tube.

Nikki then suddenly points at Sonic with his arm cannon. His eyes change color and he becomes more aggressive, often dashing around to confuse. These are his attacks:

- He uses his arm cannon:

- He fires a single, large blast at Sonic.

- He sends out a stream of pulses while tracking Sonic.

- He emits energy from his other hand, which sparks out like a blade.

- He makes a quick stab forward, which Sonic must jump or duck under.

- He sends a flurry of slashes, on lines which make a temporary plane of dangerous energy

- A single swing which will cut through the entire battlefield (Sonic must get in close)

- He launches hundreds of missiles like splashing water from his shoulders which Sonic must carefully navigate through to avoid being hit from contact or splash damage.

Sonic can hit him at any time and at any place.

Every few minutes give or take some ten seconds, Nikki's eyes will turn blue. He will then slow down and start aiming his exact same attacks at Mechanix, who will try to avoid them if not deflecting them easily. Sonic should use this opportunity to target Mechanix instead, when he is most vulnerable to being damaged.

After 20 hits, explosions rip through Nikki's final body. He loses his cannon and armor as he helplessly falls.

.

Mechanix will be attacking the entire time, whether Nikki Robotnik is there or not, forcing Sonic to keep his attention split if he is. This is what he does:

- Launch multiple large lasers at a speed where Sonic can just barely jump and duck to avoid them.

- Slam into the floor, then dash towards Sonic on the ground. Whether he jumps or not, Mechanix will turn around and then slam into Sonic. There is a short Freeze mode where Sonic must spin dash before Mechanix begins attacking to break free of his grasp.

- Cause sparkling plasma explosions to erupt in Sonic's path.

- Appear from a portal from a future time. He will come out and immediately aim at Sonic to strike. He'll return immediately after his attack. Sonic can use this opportunity of escape to attack the present Nikki, who is frozen.

- Disappear, and then appear next to Sonic for a single lightning-quick attack.

As before, Sonic must predict where Mechanix will be next, and spin attack in that area by then. Occasionally, Sonic will miss as Mechanix creates a time portal into the past (to try and hit Sonic). He only does this for all of the times he had already opened a portal, of course. Otherwise, he will disappear after the damage and reappear with a new attack.

After 24 hits, Mechanix stumbles. They both then slam back into the catwalk, where they were before. Mechanix looks at Sonic for a second, and then falls back, the 7 Chaos Emeralds easily dropping out. Sonic's eyes widen at the split-second chance and grabs them.

.

Sonic then realizes he's crushed several feet into the wall and notices Mechanix's arm holding him there. Yet he feels energy cascade through his body, and knocks his arm off. He steps out of the crater in Super form.

"Damn you, you've gotten this far without using that! I won't let you win... I won't let you win!" Mechanix shouts before blasting off, towards the core.

Sonic stands still for a moment. "He's right... I've gotten better..."

Then he dashes off, chasing Mechanix.

The background will glow brighter and brighter from the pulses of energy from the core as Sonic gets closer. Each pulse is a single color, flashing through thousands of intricate patterns towards the room's distant walls.

Mechanix, while flying forward, turns back and attacks Sonic, who can move freely in space:

Mechanix will charge and fire massive lasers that Sonic must dash under or above to escape from.

He will fire tens of smaller lasers, independent of his position (they may move with Sonic or quickly zip behind, unmoving).

He may let out hundreds of bullets in different patterns, from simply rotating and expanding to colliding with each other at exact moments.

He will occasionally teleport next to Sonic and make a swift but avoidable attack.

He will fire two balls of energy above and below Sonic, which suddenly ensnare him with an arc between them and begin to rotate. Their rotation slows Sonic down regardless of direction, and to break the connection Sonic must spindash (in air) in the opposite direction. If he is facing the rotation, he will only reinforce it and slow himself down further.

If Sonic gets too close, he will start creating white barriers and blasting them off repeatedly to repel Sonic. Sonic must dash through each one to make it through.

Once Sonic gets close enough, just by contacting Mechanix will he be dealt a hit of damage. Mechanix will then instantly attack back in a blinding white flash, sending Sonic reeling behind again.

After the 10th hit, everything will freeze for a moment. Sonic will see Mechanix's punch coming at a normal speed, and after swiftly dodging it, can attack again, releasing the freeze.

"I figured it out." Mechanix said, and stopped moving.

Sonic stared, waiting.

"You must think the world is slowing down at times, especially whenever I am near, is that correct?"

Sonic looked back, but did not respond.

"To me, it is you who are speeding up..." Mechanix said.

He pauses for a moment, and continues. "The 7 Chaos Emeralds unlock the potentials of our bodies and mind... for me, I attained free will, however chained by algorithms and memories. For you, you're in this state now."

Sonic then feels the rush again, and looks towards Mechanix, who seems to be moving at every speed at once. He spoke clearly, "The Black Emerald amplifies the core essence, akin to its ability to amplify inputted energy. It not only lets ancient people and machines live eons past their due... but it makes you faster, and it made Robotnik smarter... and me, it makes me invulnerable, as you can see..."

He shows his body. "All of that damage you've dealt to me has disappeared."

He looks back at Sonic. "The Chaos Emeralds alter space and time, the Black Emerald alters power and movement, amplifies the essence, and the Master Emerald changes the mind... to see worlds much more than what you thought was reality..."

"Why are you telling me this?" Sonic asked, impatient to beat Mechanix down.

"I reiterate. The Chaos Emeralds are each a single connection to the Special Zone, an infinite expanse of pure energy. Yet 7 of them is more powerful than just 1. The Master Emerald has exactly the same amount of power, 7x that of a single Chaos Emerald. Yet using the Master Emerald, the Chaos Emeralds can have their connections expanded, to let more energy through. And then, there's the Black Emerald, which can amplify all of the powers... of reality both real and perceived!"

"And that power is mine! How do you know that even now you are not in a hallucination?! How do you know you aren't just a component of my infinite will?! Once I combine every Emerald, I could kill you instantly! Even now, I could...!"

"Why haven't you?" Sonic spat. He was tired of this. He already failed, and death had no meaning to him as the Old World returned.

Mechanix didn't respond.

An energy pulse buzzes by.

"No... I can't..." he says lightly, and then in a quick spasm raises his arm and immediately fires a gargantuan laser beam that engulfs Sonic. He then blasts off, at full speed, towards the nearby core.

Sonic will have to push hard through the energy beam before escaping it, although he will be moving somewhat slower. Despite that, he must push even harder to catch up to Mechanix before he reaches the Master Emerald.

They finally head over the airspace of the metallic dome holding the emerald columns. Mechanix does not attack, instead focusing on getting to the center.

He does, and turns around, holding the Black Emerald.

Sonic, without thinking, realizes that if he had that Emerald along with being in Super form, he could deal enough damage to Mechanix that he possibly couldn't recover fast enough from. He launches forward, at full speed, towards the unmoving Mechanix.

In the final move of this battle, Mechanix will use the Black Emerald, causing Sonic to enter the Hyper state.

- He will then charge an instant-kill beam attack, recognizable by being entirely black in color, distorting light around it.

If Sonic doesn't get hit by this and instantly die, he can dodge it and make a single hit on Mechanix.

Sonic charges all of his energy into a punch that he fiercely strikes deep into Mechanix's head. Just as he does, Mechanix moves a little faster and drives his fist into Sonic's back from above.

.

Mechanix stumbles back, but Sonic falls like a rocket pointing downward. After he crashes into the smooth floor far below, he loses his Super form. As he does, despite being woozy and tired, he jumps back up and moves his body as the coldness clamps on him like an iron maiden. He looks up.

Mechanix has the Master Emerald, and places it into himself. He then shines brighter than ever before, like a never-ending explosion of pure white light. Then, Sonic hears an actual explosion. The light quickly fades out and he sees Mechanix fall right before him.

The floor splits beneath him, the shock wave knocking Sonic far back.

"No, this is all wrong." Mechanix says, clutching his head.

"I thought... did I really think... I was the god of life? Creating blind robots like me, whose only use was to destroy... I thought I was the god of death, able to judge who deserved my punishment or not, although I thought everyone did. I thought I was the god of resurrection, fulfilling my obligation as the savior of my creators' species to bring them back from their own destruction..."

He shouted at Sonic, "You know, don't you?! The Old Mobians killed themselves with the Black Stones, the Black Emerald, the Chaos Emeralds... with me! They could never escape the cycle of power, of domination, of existence! And yet, I thought I could save them all... They thought they could, too..."

"New Mobius was nowhere near as bad yet... and then I literally rip Old Mobius out of their ground..."

"I had an original purpose, you know? You must know... I was to absorb The Air, use my capacity to store infinite energy as with the Emeralds to store the finite amount of energy that was there... and use it, not to become more powerful, but to help the Zexakal return to a happier life they barely remembered anymore."

He starts laughing. "Why do I think I exist? I was controlled when I was made, I was controlled both times I was released... up until now, I thought all of my beliefs were mine... no! NO!" He drops.

He screamed at Sonic, his voice almost pealing, "ROBOTNIK DESIGNED EVEN THAT! And what is my will but carrying out his long-since dead instructions..."

Sonic tried to hold himself back. The coldness that was getting familiar to him suddenly disappeared. The sound and sights he saw disappeared from his mind. He felt like he was hanging onto a thread, while just a minute ago he was seeing his enemy fall to his knees. Even though Mechanix had killed Robotnik, before his very eyes, Robotnik was controlling Mechanix like a puppet from some plan he thought out all in advance. Even now, Robotnik was moving his corpus.

The image of his dead flesh flashed in Sonic's mind. He quickly turned away, holding in vomit, holding in fear.

He remembered the inner sanctum of the Death Egg. He remembers everything.

He didn't want to think of Robotnik anymore.

Mechanix was still rambling. "'Me', 'I', is just an emergent property of the autonomy present in all of my elements... I have no core... I don't... exist!"

Mechanix stands back up. "And yet, it isn't just me! _You_ don't exist, either! And both of us are nothing but the garbage from stars, whether born or made we'll both end up in the same place... matter is energy, always flowing, changing, without form!"

With head cocked, silent, his voice changes to one of absolute calm. "Everything... all things, all possibilities... exist and do not exist, in the eternal continuum of time!"

Mechanix then drops his head forward, his fists starting to shake. "And yet... I killed... I destroyed... I ripped open the surface of Mobius..."

"I wanted to see... what it was like... to help another conscious thing into existence and understanding... I wanted to teach, to show, to care for... and be cared back for..."

"No... Everything is wrong... I... No! NO! I didn't... he's still... Nikki's still alive, right? Tell me he's alive! I can't believe it... No...It was me... I ki-killed my own son... my only son! He... had free will! He had sentience! Why... what's wrong with me?!"

He starts beating himself in the face and chest, at first mildly, and then harshly enough to deal damage to himself, while screaming.

The entire ship starts shaking. Sonic turns around to see the massive ceiling transform piece by piece, disassembling itself towards the core. Every meaningful shape disappears into the wave of moving pieces as once again the entire ship transforms.

"We... are all doomed to suffering... in the world, out of our control, within our control... on our bodies... in our minds... there is no escape! To live is to suffer!" Mechanix's voice suddenly booms from all around Sonic, rumbling through every surface and shape.

Sonic starts to lose his footing, and then the smooth floor below cracks in an instant. He finds himself on a small column as the core contorts, too. Mechanix glows brightly again as piece by piece of the ship gets crunched towards him. Shapes mold around him, gracefully connecting to his body. Like Puppet Nikki, except with thousands of layers of armor, Mechanix rebuilds himself.

"I was going to do what I wish... but now... the only thing I wish is the only way out... I will end this cycle of suffering! I will... destroy everything!"

Sonic leaps to a passing cube, translating across the space as his column meagerly crumbles. He finds himself with less and less breathing space around him. As the cube reaches the wall and enters it, Sonic leaps towards a hanging arc of wires and hangs on them as they are pulled towards the ceiling.

"No matter what happens... no matter what I do... you live..." Mechanix almost whispers, and Sonic turns to his side expecting Mechanix to have teleported next to his ear.

The room no longer has a recognizable shape, and Mechanix is already heavily covered by layers of the super-strong, flexible metallic material that makes up his ship. Sonic swings towards the wall, landing on a small piece of catwalk between two blocks of metal jutting out over the abyss, which has since raised, revealing its bottom as a lake of constantly flowing energy.

"You live, no matter who attacks you. You live, no matter what is done to you! No matter what I can do, the fact that you're still alive defies the natural flow of all existence... and you mock us in the cycle... with your damn spin attack!"

He suddenly roars, and Sonic feels his breath suddenly run out as the massive walls abruptly move to close in on him. Spikes stab out the wall behind him, and he finds himself with nowhere to run.

"You... _you_... YOU! You've defeated me every time... no, not anymore! NO! NOT ANYMORE! Die... die... die!"

**Eternal Equator** [Act 1] (7/36)

Sonic is now in the very complicated wall, itself a composite of many thousands of parts, their lengths and shapes jutting out. Sonic must wall-jump and leap across large gaps on horizontal or vertical platforms. After a quick climb he enters a hole in the ceiling and ends up in an extremely long corridor, shaped like an upside-down trapezoid, dimly lit in each corner.

Immediately, the giant block Sonic is in starts moving. As he adjusts to the new relative velocity, he must also avoid the area he just ran through disassembling rapidly, grinding in each other in an attempt to catch and squish Sonic to death.

This is how the level begins.

The path ahead will come at high speeds. There will be spike fields, pits, pits with spikes, massive explosions which Sonic can only escape through a quick Freeze (automatic), falling columns, falling floors, rising floors, massive areas to clear as the ceiling or floor closes in slowly on the other side (like in Marble Garden Zone), or long vertical areas where both walls close in. There may occasionally be a battalion of Mechanix's small robot defenders, but they are easily dispatched. Some areas require complicated turning and wall-jumping in very complicated areas.

After 1/2 of the level, Sonic escapes the ever-moving pieces onto a semi-stable surface. It opposes another surface, the two planes like ceiling and floor cut off far in the distance. There is a bright horizon, a constantly changing hue at its brightest. Sonic will run for some distance, until he comes to a gap. He will jump, and depending on his speed, will either seemingly effortlessly crossing a small hole or falling into a massive hole separating the two platforms. Eventually, as Sonic moves on, he will realize he is on a cube fractal of sorts; except constantly moving, and with an end in sight. He keeps on running until he finally makes it out.

He then reaches the bright light on the horizon, just one line on a much broader wall extending beyond sight. He jumps through it.

.

Sonic is in a desert. The sky is dark, but covered with bright clouds of smoke. Scattered across the horizon, behind the chain of mountains, were infernos that lit up the twilight.

Suddenly, Sonic was standing before a city. It was humongous yet he could see none of it behind the waves of fire consuming the crumbling buildings.

Sonic then sees a face. It disappears. He tries to recall it, a familiar memory yet something unrecognizable. It was an echidna face, with ancient markings. It had...

Then, he sees another face. Then an entire family. He hears something like screaming, except it doesn't sound human. He grabs his ears in reaction, closing his eyes, facing down. Then the images and sound disappear.

Sonic looked up. He lowers his eyelids against the incredible brightness of the fire. "This... this is a hallucination. Yet, it feels... so real..."

He is then standing on a cliff. Disoriented, he shakes his head and glances downward. He leaps back, seeing within the pit a body of corpses lied over each other... some barely in one piece, some barely in several. He held back his gagging. "What the fuck is this?! If it's a hallucination, then the Master Emerald must be involved... Mechanix!"

As if in response, Mechanix, in his Grandmaster form, appears standing next to him. He turns his head to face Sonic, then disappears instantly.

"So... these are his memories..." Sonic utters.

A cold hand grabs Sonic's leg. He looks back and nearly screams, seeing an echidna holding him, standing on a tower of bodies (some broken) below. Every single face in the death pit was looking back at him, feverishly clawing and biting him along every other corpse. He goes to kick the echidna's arm when it grabs his other leg, sending him careening onto his back with a strong smack. Sonic, dazed, doesn't notice the zombie pulling both his legs over the cliff. Within a second he snaps back and tries to kick the unyielding hands off, to no avail.

Sonic is then in mid-air, facing the sky as it flies away from him. He feels adrenaline surge as his head turns far enough to see the hundreds of eyes piercing into his.

Instead of landing into a pile of sharp, broken bones and barely-attached slabs of flesh slapping at his face and body and teeth not meant for eating meat raw biting into him, Sonic hits a floor.

.

Before he can take a breath, the wall behind him dislocates its pieces in a continual, complex motion to again painfully crush Sonic into pieces. It moves forward. The path ahead is filled with spike, fire, laser and explosion traps on both the ceiling and the floor along with an eclectic mix of simple and hardcore platforming, so Sonic must gain enough speed to easily jump between both (or slow down if the traps get to dense).

After a minute's worth, the traps will mostly disappear. Instead, moving to attack Sonic from the opposite direction are droves upon droves of Mechanix's creations. Sonic can easily plow through these, or spin attack to constantly stay in the air.

After the second 1/2 of the level, he comes again to the outside of a giant cube. However, it is much smaller and it is not surrounded by cube-shaped holes and other cubes. Instead, the bright light can be seen as a massive space within which a few cubes are scattered. Sonic will jump from one cube to another, although the space is so wide he may just fall and continue falling until he finally lands on one. Some cubes may be close enough to actually jump between, but for the most part it's just white space.

As Sonic approaches the white energy surface, he will be attacked from every direction by an onslaught of Nikki-like robots. They look exactly the same, yet they all act exactly the same in hunting Sonic down and performing basic attacks. Each only needs one hit to be dispatched.

Sonic jumps through the wall.

He lands in a cube room, in the center of which is a simple blue circle. It dimly glows.

Upon hitting it once, the walls immediately collapse into billions of tiny pieces. He sees black space with twinkling stars cradling the massive blue planet below. He runs towards the edge of the floor, looking over the edge. He sees a giant cloud of pieces and dust from the ship fall and burn up into the atmosphere. As they disappear, he silently looks at the planet slowly rotating below him. He tries to make out landforms beneath the sky. He could hardly tell from here what had happened...

There were no sounds.

.

[Act 2]

_For all 3 parts the song picks up pace and style, getting ultra-badass on the final part._

_Although he's on the outside, the x-axis is laid on the circumference of the body, so his only danger of falling is between the gaps._

Sonic stands on the lowest platform of the new Mechanix, fused with newly reshaped steel pieces. The lower area where Sonic starts out is filled with pipes and form-denying shapes, desaturated and dark. A floodlight might over-illuminate an area for a bit, but mostly the light comes from smaller overhanging lamps placed in a series. There are many holes within the material revealing a decaying inner material, obscured by pure darkness but seen to be falling apart. The background can occasionally be glimpsed through the cracks.

The start is a ramp that spirals around the small bottom toward the larger upper area. It has some gaps of varying length. As the radius widens the gaps become longer, requiring some platforms in between to cross safely. Once Sonic gets high enough, there will be many of different shapes, sizes and placements, some moving on a simple path back and forward.

Sonic will then reach a long area confined between two walls. There are platforms and walls to jump on and wall-jump up until he reaches a platform shaped like a ring around Mechanix. This area, although simple, is about as long as the one before, with the same background.

The wall has brighter colors painted on it, still overlying a harsh, but this time less blocky metal surface. There are smaller lights, brighter and more saturated, indented around it. As Sonic moves around it, he'll come to another blue sphere, suspended in the air with an iron block on its right side. He hits it once from the left, and it begins moving above the ring. He must then hit the block from the right to deal damage as it's stopped dead (only if he's moving as fast if not faster; otherwise he'd get hurt himself). Sonic must hit it again from the left to bring it into motion, but the block will suddenly surge with energy. One more hit from the left (Sonic will need to be running some) makes it move faster, dissipating the energy. A spin attack from the right (again at or above the same speed) will deal another hit of damage. Sonic must do this for 3 hits on the left and then 4, until it is destroyed.

A piece of the ring behind Sonic detaches from the other side, and the entire ring pulls itself from the rightmost end (right behind Sonic) upwards. As it coils high, Sonic should spin dash upwards to avoid sliding off. While he goes, everything below him detaches and disassembles, bursting into flames as it falls towards the planet as well.

This second area is much smoother, although occasionally an essential piece must be burdensomely left exposed. However, all the bare machinery that is exposed is done so gracefully. A bright color organization scheme is apparent, placed conveniently along with bright, plentiful lights which vary in color.

The platforming from now on involves avoiding machines glowing or exposing energy along with more moving platforms. Platforms in general are smaller and more discrete, with the actual timing requiring much more precision. The most radical difference is that pieces of Mechanix are still moving, usually rotating one way or the other. Although the platforming itself may be unaffected if it's all on one moving piece, if the platforms are between multiple moving pieces (say still/moving platforms over a chasm on three layers of pieces).

In between the two more horizontal zones is a vertical zone with moving platforms, pieces and occasional hazards to boot. There is also another after the second horizontal. Once he clears this area, Sonic will get to a second ring.

The background transforms completely from the lusterless into a stylized, shiny, curvy surface with extravagant and extreme shapes of smoothly changing colors They are lined in zig-zag fashion with glowing circles that slowly change color to reflect where Sonic is (more red) to where the ball is (more blue).

Sonic will run around and find the next blue ball, this one with eight regularly spaced spears like spokes on a wheel (bar one empty space), laying still above the ring-shaped scaffolding. The hole allows for Sonic to hit the ball directly, but this will push it into motion. Sonic must then attack from the same hole without being stabbed by the spears. After four hits, the ring starts moving around, wobbling to and away from the earth's gravity. The ball will roll up and down the ring forcing Sonic to accommodate. Four more hits, and the ball is destroyed, its spears snapping.

The ring will start spinning wilder and wilder. Sonic must jump when the ring is at its highest, entering one of the many small chutes that cover the second transition. Everything below the transparent platform he lands on detaches and then explodes as it heads downward.

The area ahead is completely smooth, but also around the widest parts of Mechanix's body. The lights lying across the walls pulsate with color and brightness in complicated patterns. There are very spaciously wide areas where the walls are grooved on a very slowly rolling sinusoid, but also many crowded areas requiring precision platforming. Additionally, wall-jumping will be necessary in any large area requiring some vertical movement. There are also areas without gaps, with curves that lead Sonic upside-down in the opposite direction and back up-right again resembling Falling Frenzy to a degree. All of these are interspersed almost equally, and while so the many platforms which lay on the moving wall pieces will be zooming past each other as the wall pieces themselves slide at speeds many times that of the last area.

Sonic then lands on a third ring (the widest). There is a blue ball. He hits it, and it begins moving. It moves initially in a square wave as it traverses around. With every additional hit, it moves at twice the speed. After four hits, it moves in a sawtooth, then a triangle, then a sine. Then it's destroyed.

The ring starts spinning while moving upwards around Mechanix. It then enters in a cavity in the final area above, and Sonic will jump to a platform above. As he does, the ring breaks apart while the third area falls apart in one piece. It then disappears in a ball of light.

The final area is very geometric, with growing waves of triangle-shaped steel folds amongst curling coils and unexplainable smooth manifolds. The lights are blended with the material, changing colors in a coordinated way that resembles energy flow. As Sonic runs forward, he will have no hazards or gaps, just some alternate paths. The paths in particular follow the curves and loops at the top of Mechanix. As he gets higher and higher, he can see more of Mechanix's final body deep within the monuments. Once he reaches the top, Sonic jumps off towards a flat platform far below him.

Just as he lands, massive chunks of Mechanix around him peel off. All that is left is a resilient, reflective battlefield, attached to the giant form of Mechanix, no longer resembling him at all. Instead, there is a god-like figure with a head with very long dreadlocks oscillating away from it. It had three eyes, burning an intense blue that burns into the air itself. There were radiating circles as wings, with a complex body of a thousand layers and multiple arms. It was a sleek white, various colors vaporizing off the body, surging in tiny crevices behind the armor.

.

"Everything..." Sonic heard Mechanix utter.

Sonic looked back. He had nothing to say at this point. He must only destroy.

"Nothing!" Mechanix then yelled, its voice resonating its own surface.

It started firing massive laser beams that scathe the air into ions until they strike the earth. There are flashes of light. The beams stopped.

Sonic knew if he died, the planet would be lost, and it was mostly lost anyway. He still, at the very least, didn't want more... "Stop it... fight me... try to kill me, Mechanix!"

"Order!" Mechanix yelled. He released a burst of energy, launching himself faster around the planet. Sonic ducked, but felt little resistance. Mechanix fired again, and again, until the planet was spinning in a blur.

"Chaos!" Mechanix screamed, shooting the beams, moving the cannons about as the energy rips open valleys into Mobius.

"Stop it! Fight me!" Sonic pleaded, scowling.

"You. You. You! You! You!" Mechanix repeated. "Die. Die. Die. Die! Die! Die!"

[Act 2 Boss : **ZEXAGALAXIUS**]

Mechanix's body will consist of several hundred shapes large and small, seemingly passing in between a dimension beyond space (this is just the 4th dimension). His radiant head of infinite locks seems twice as infinite this way, although occasionally he will be still and Sonic will see Mechanix as a single 3D form (and the locks just seem to point out in all directions at once). Mechanix will also seemingly have an infinite amount of arms, not just when he moves his body around, but when he attacks (seemingly endlessly). He radiates visible streams of energy, superimposed on an already moving ocean of energy displacing itself within the space around them. Within 3-dimensional space are patterns that greatly resemble the engravings and embellishments of Mechanix's many earlier structures, repeated in the same style but never the same shape, endlessly.

Somehow, behind all of this, the earth still spins. As they circle the horizon ever faster, the billions of specks of stars stay stationary while Mechanix chases Mobius as it conserves momentum from the actions that made their origin. The sun still burns while Mechanix enters the darkness and returns into the light repeatedly through across the terminator, with Sonic riding humbly upon his belly.

Mechanix's eyes, a blue beyond pure, glowing as if beyond the dimensions, revealing something that is closer to the player than to Sonic. They are small, but they are there, always there, fixed into the screen.

Mechanix fires a ray so compacted with power and yet so very large that time, for an instant, seemed to flow _backwards_. Sonic was so stunned by the massive ball of searing white light head towards them, and the planet itself was even rotating slowly in the opposite direction, and space in patches glowing bright from the energy-charged 3-dimensional Zexakalan-like conduits. While going backwards, it slows down slowly as the energy covers all that Sonic can see.

Time stops.

Sonic used the chance to gather his thoughts. "As long as he uses the Black Emerald, I'll be able to go fast enough to avoid it."

Just then, one of Mechanix's hands flew across his stomach to swipe Sonic while he was unsuspecting. Sonic recognizes this and jumps.

As he's in the air, he figures that time must have never stopped, and that none of what he's seeing could be real. Then another hand moves in the opposite direction and strikes into Sonic, who can't move (_much_) in free fall. Sonic is being punched so hard that he can't move against the giant fist. So he spindashes, cleaving through the hand until he reaches the other side, detached from the wrist. Sonic jumps off, only to be shot at by lasers from the side of the body which he narrowly evades.

He manages to grab on the ledge. He gathers himself and looks around. They still orbit Mobius at high speeds, but Mechanix's use of the Black Emerald made it seem like they were slowly circling it. Sonic decides to jump off his belly onto his seemingly infinite chest and continue moving to avoid the complicated 5-step deep traps Mechanix had waiting for him. It seems like a landscape of architecture, and even then it quickly morphed into entirely different 3-dimensional shapes in a matter of seconds, while still having an internal consistency.

The many landscapes differ between the familiar architectures of the Zexakalans and ones which are more basic or resemble a certain shape (like tori). As everything is always changing, Sonic can only think about what's around him so he can move forward. If he needs to wall-jump, he should not hesitate.

_The level maps are randomly generated (in real-time)_.

While Sonic makes sense of where he is on the surface of Mechanix's vast body, Mechanix will be attacking him nonstop.

There are many types of attacks:

- Attacking with a fist in one direction, then retrieving it.

- Slide hand across surface of ground (even if the ground is uneven). If it touches Sonic, Sonic will instantly be within the palm (it will move that fast), and then Sonic will crush rings out of Sonic.

- Shooting lasers at or ahead of Sonic (if it's ahead, he can avoid it).

- Making an explosion of energy out of mid-air near Sonic.

- Attack in one way so as to trap Sonic while he avoids the first attack, and to successively trap Sonic for each move after that, to a depth of 5 moves as before. Sonic can rarely anticipate it; he must escape mostly by instinct.

- In a burst of Master Emerald energy, the environment is flooded with a wave of some mysterious energy that changes the landscape.

- The energy is black, and all objects are represented by lines, planes, shapes changing color and morphing form without bending, fading out in flanges towards the empty background. The landscape is much more abruptly cut apart and in unique ways that make platforming much more varied and sometimes, difficult.

- The energy is a rainbow, and suddenly everything is represented in pulsating gradient rivers of every color, and things mix and change until it seems like nothing is different from another. Sonic, himself just a piece of color, only runs forward here.

Mechanix also has intensely powerful attacks to overwhelm Sonic:

- The giant death laser which destroyed the Eraser Egg

- A black hole which Sonic must stay completely clear of (or get sucked in and die)

- A giant wall of death energy which comes from behind him, forcing him to keep moving through.

- After the first three times, in the middle of these intense attacks, a being of pure white energy that somewhat resembles Mechanix appears in front of Sonic, without seeming to need to move. He pulls out an illusion of the Black Emerald, and starts attacking while Sonic is already being attacked! He can do four types of things:

- Try to kill Sonic:

- With directed laser beams, some which are charged

- A ball which splits into 4 balls which split into 4 more each

- Restrict one of Sonic's abilities:

- His spindash (he must rely on good jumping)

- His running (he must rely on spindash and spindash jumping)

- Suddenly turn the screen black and vanish in it, until sharp shapes stab and slice Sonic, who must spindash to cut the blackness out (and back into the gray but not whitening Mechanix spirit)

- Try to create something:

- Send out a fleet of robots to attack Sonic.

- Creates the landscape anew, changing it as Sonic moves across, constantly dragging platforms down and moving ledges away.

- Launch out pure energy which moves in many, many different patterns and which Sonic must navigate through.

- Try to regenerate:

- If Sonic ever hits him, he'll recover.

- If Sonic spindashes through any important pieces of the body, he will fix it. Sonic cannot do any damage to this Mechanix spirit.

.

After Sonic survives long enough, the spirit will suddenly dash towards the ground and rip it open with its hands. As the material flies into space, from the hole a concave-styled mecha leaps out. The seven Chaos Emeralds' energies radiate through its chest, which glows rainbow. The Mechanix ghost disintegrates into a mass of white energy and dissipates into the mecha.

The infinite world of Mechanix stretches off for forever, and yet, Mobius still spins. It spins slowly, slower than how he first saw it, so he figures he still must be Hyper. Sonic thought that Mechanix could probably slow down his perception of time through the Master Emerald, or how he could actually bend time itself with the energy he has from all of the Emeralds.

Sonic doesn't know where to go. All he sees is more and more of Mechanix, not as if he was growing but as if there is always more of him, almost as if he already existed in all points in space and time. Sonic wondered how he was still alive. Was Mechanix really trying to kill him?

As soon as he finished that thought, Mobius disappeared. Its moon vanished. The distant stars still shone, dimly. As Sonic moved across Mechanix, they left long, gentle tracers into the pitch black stillness. Sonic could visualize himself running a ring on the interior of a massive sphere.

The mecha was still the same, except now its contours pulsed with a rainbow light. When it moved, its body seemed to change shape slightly to accentuate the movement.

In the center of the sphere was a tiny dark ball, barely noticeable except on one occasion (detailed below).

- The mecha attacks by shooting twin beams from its eyes (there's three in a scalene) and then rushing and attacking with its hand in a whip-like punch. Sonic can back off or rush forward and hit the mecha in the chest, which counts as damage.

- It may spin before attacking to have more length (or more power if it's closer).

- It may also open its shoulders and shoot out a salvo of rockets which immediately rush to the floor in front of Mechanix and then gradually rise up to hit Sonic from below (he'll need to back off, or jump in, skipping over the rockets until he can hit him).

- Finally, the mecha may suddenly flash rainbow continually faster and brighter until it rushes Sonic with a combination of his lightning-quick and curved direct attacks along with laser blasts. Sonic can try and counter, but he might be safer avoiding the Mechanix mecha.

- Occasionally, the ball in the sky might flash white and white rays exit it for a period before it becomes dark again. Since it is so far away, the rays take a minute or two to arrive. As they approach, time slowly slows down. On arrival, they are the size of planets which pass through the Mechanix plane without radiation. They are pure white. Although time nearly stops, the mecha is burning white, itself (only on the edges and contours, though). It now tries to push and knock Sonic into one of the closest energy beams, while Sonic tries to do the same. Once next to the pure white cylinder, one counter on the chest will send the mecha back enough to make it simply disappear.

Sonic may not have noticed, but the tiny dot has been approaching as well. Or rather, it seems to have expanded in size.

The laser beams pass through and time speeds up again. Left behind are the seven Chaos Emeralds, floating in bubbles of their own energy. Without thinking, Sonic rushes and leaps to grab them. Just as he touches them, the ball flashes red, and everything turns red (including Sonic). As he was jumping a string of metal pulled itself out of the floor. Right before he touches them, it grabs the red Emerald and the rest are scattered. The old colors return.

.

[[RED]]

The ball is a little closer, but it's still mostly invisible for all purposes. The string of metal continually pulls itself out of the ground. Sonic runs on, but the string chases and overbears him. It grows longer and longer until it stretches beyond sight, parallel to the infinite plane below. As he runs under it, occasionally he'll see a bulge, glowing from the Red Chaos Emerald. It dashes down the string, as if superimposed yet detached.

The background morphs into an ocean of linear waves, of varying colors and frequencies, some with simple overtones. The ball in the sky does not change.

The string takes a wave which carries along its entire length and passes by Sonic. Its amplitude is high enough to scrape against the ground, so Sonic starts running to avoid being crushed. As Sonic runs faster, another wave comes from the other side. He must slow down to avoid hitting its trough, but when the two waves collide, a standing wave emerges. He must now dodge the descending string troughs as he moves on to catch the Emerald.

But the wave changes:

- Triangle

- Sawtooth

- Square

- Pulse with duty cycle 25%-75%

- Occasionally, the amplitude will increase and decrease

As Sonic gets closer to the Emerald, it will send back spikes of energy which do not alter the wave in general.

After 8 hits, the string breaks apart and the Emerald is freed. Before Sonic can grab it, it jets off into the distance.

As he's running, the ground suddenly gives way underneath him. The waves in the background increase or decrease in frequency until they become solid lines either way. Their colors blend into one space, although it fluctuates in color itself.

Meanwhile, Sonic is falling. Again, the ball flashes (this time, green) and everything becomes green. Metal is torn from the ground and spins into a ball above Sonic. It lands slightly in front of him, and just as it does it crashes into the Green Emerald which was lodged into the ground.

.

[[GREEN]]

The ball in the sky is a little closer, noticeable and taking up some space, but its texture is still undetectable besides a single color (green). The ball nearer to Sonic continues bouncing off of the steep slope and flying far, before gravity again leads it to the ground. Sonic must avoid being squished from the ball, and to hit it (changing its trajectory slightly) whenever it's in range. The slope will spontaneously change angle at times, anywhere from 15° to 90°.

After 8 hits, the ball bounces hard against the ground, sending itself out of sight. After a brief period, another slope like a mirror image comes from the sky, approaching Sonic as if to squish him. Within its "ground" is the ball, rolling back and forth. The mirror slope will be parallel at first, and Sonic must adjust his position to strike the point of its surface tangent to the interior ball to hit it and push the slope back. It will fall back and then change its angle between -45° to 45° so that Sonic must adjust his jump as well as his position to strike it as it closes in on him. At the intersecting point, the slopes simply merge even though both are rushing by (immobile). The narrow area is fatal to Sonic if he gets caught (as he'll be crushed between). Of the 8 hits Sonic needs to give, occasionally the slope will be -90° (that is, perpendicular to the ground and facing Sonic from behind). During these times Sonic must wait for the slope he's running on to change angle (as the mirror slope _is_ moving then) so that he can slow down and attack.

Once the final blow is struck, the mirror slope shatters and the pieces fall upwards, while the ball falls again, and upon contact with the true ground, explodes. The Emerald, at this time, jettisons out and then dashes forward through the air, beyond Sonic's reach.

As he runs, the ground like the mirror slope shatters, and the pieces fall downwards, at a rate faster than which Sonic begins to fall at. The background, changing color, somehow moves away, revealing itself as just one face of a 3-dimensional shape, concave. The faces randomly change the amount of straight lines in their boundaries, as well as randomly changing their size, and of course randomly changing their color (and value based on surrounding colors).

The ball flashes blue, and everything turns blue. Metal is drawn out in spinning strings from a distant location, forming a giant sphere, half covered in spikes. Within a section of material comes the Blue Emerald, which enters it and makes it glow with active energy. Sonic tucks into a spinball to avoid getting hurt.

Suddenly, springs made of energy appear one-by-one next to each other, within a few seconds, to completely surround the two both above and below. They form a path, bending around into a circular loop. Sonic bounces rapidly between the two sides while the sphere does not spin, its spiky side pointing towards him. It moves clockwise, with too little space for Sonic to squeeze through, forcing him to move ahead. Gravity has seemingly disappeared.

.

[[BLUE]]

The ball is larger, taking up half of the "sky", changing different hues and values of blue. Sonic must push himself forward through the loop to avoid being squished or skewered by the pursuing sphere. With enough speed, he'll make it all the way round until he can reach its backside and land a hit. However, this makes it move slightly faster, so he'll need more time to speed up more to hit it again.

After 4 hits, the spring ring is cut open as more form to increase the length of the two lines, a new path that bends and twists over itself into a large labyrinth. Additionally, more springs form to the sides, forming a tube of sorts, as the springs start rotating around their center axis in one direction or another, at varying speeds. The sphere is still moving at the speed Sonic hit it last, so he must continue on, bouncing through the spring tunnels as fast as possible.

Once he clears this long path, he'll fall into a giant sphere of springs and the Emerald sphere will follow. It has lost its spikes and decreased in size somewhat. The springs are more powerful, now, enough to launch him from side to side (although occasionally, he may hit lighter-colored springs which don't bounce him as far). They move around in different patterns, in lines or blocks and in different directions or the same, still varying in speed. Sonic must try to bounce himself towards the sphere to hit it.

After 8 hits, the sphere decreases in size again, but instead of shedding its exterior like before, it concentrates it to form an armor that Sonic can't pierce. The spring sphere, too, changes shape, into a long elongated tube. The Emerald sphere bounces from end to end from a massive spring that formed, moving at high speeds. Sonic can now hold himself on the springs he's landed on, so as to more easily change his angle (although holding down launches him faster, a speed which slows down gradually as he hits further springs without again holding (conversely, he can hold on every spring to go even faster)). He will need to do this to target the few weak points in the Emerald sphere's armor. With the first hit, unless Sonic hits him directly perpendicular to its movement, it will begin spinning and each additional hit will affect that spin. After 4 hits, the tube will suddenly spin and then stop at a different angle at each hit. After 12 hits, the tube will instead continually rotate and will rotate faster for each hit.

After 16 total hits in the tube, it rotates until the "lower" edge is perpendicular to gravity, which returns suddenly. The remaining springs burst into plumes of smoke that get absorbed into the background. The sphere loses its armor and gets even smaller, bouncing helplessly against the floor springs, spinning in the air. Sonic can still hold and launch, and he will need to so he can strike the sphere in its parabolic movements, although he will affect its velocity and spin.

_The horizontal edges are looped, that is, if the ball goes off screen to the left it will immediately appear from the right. This applies to Sonic, too, of course._

After 4 final hits, the sphere and the springs split apart, leaving Sonic in free fall with the Blue Emerald. It then leaves him in a burst, flying off to wherever the other Emeralds went.

The background changes again, the faces bending away from concave and into convex. They then zoom outwards, the many faces laid upon a single 3-dimensional shape, itself one of many moving and spinning in a larger space (like the background in the slots special stage of _Sonic 3_).

The ball flashes yellow, and everything turns yellow. Falling all around Sonic are pieces of metal. Some condense and take the form of an octahedron as the Yellow Emerald, while falling at a slower pace, gets caught within. It briefly bursts with light and zips downwards.

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[[YELLOW]]

The ball takes up most of the sky now, and finally it reveals its texture – that is, a mirror. It reflects the thousands of individual pieces falling from the sky as well as the sky itself. It can now be seen moving closer and closer. Sonic can do nought but move back and forth, or turn into a spinball. He must move to avoid the many pieces that fall faster than him from above, and that fall slower than him from below. Some pieces may be particularly long and filled with hazards like fields of sharp edges and points and live wires. Conveniently, in areas where Sonic must move before he can see a coming object, there may be a line of rings to lead him on.

After a long fall, Sonic finally lands on a steep slope which evens out flat. As he runs on, the many pieces from above crash into the ground, cracking and splitting it open. Occasionally, this will happen near Sonic, who must jump over the newly created fissures and ledges.

As he goes on, a very large wheel, itself covered in cracks, is rolling on ahead of him. Sonic must jump in one, waiting until it rotates to the top and then leaping onto the exterior as it moves heedlessly of the fracturing landscape below. As he jumps over the cracks, keeping pace, the wheel will come to another one, equal in size but moving half the speed. Sonic moves forward and leaps into one of its cracks, just as they collide, sending the second wheel at twice its original speed. There will be more wheels onward from that, of different sizes (reflecting their masses, each being a multiple of another) and different speeds, which Sonic must hop on each time. Should Sonic miss a jump, he will have to leap onto the ground and catch up on foot.

Finally, he will see the octahedron ahead of him. As his wheel reaches it, he can leap to deal a hit, but it will move farther ahead afterward. Sonic must jump back onto the ground and give chase. Non-spinning pieces from the sky will stab into the ground, which he can jump or wall-jump off of to reach other falling pieces and make his way through the air and towards the Emerald container. Each hit cracks it.

After only 4 hits, it breaks, but as Sonic expects the Yellow Emerald jets away.

The background can no longer be seen behind the massive ball, which has covered the entire sky. Although still quite distant, Sonic can barely see himself reflected upon its massive surface, which approaches slowly but surely. He can see farther than his eyes normally could by looking at the reflections on the edges of the surface, as the curvature compacts the visual information of faraway objects. From beneath the surface a glowing surge of light grows until it hits it, and the entire ball flashes orange, making everything orange.

Just then, a massive chunk of metal slams into the ground, ripping it wide open. As bits fly, strings of metal, molten hot, spin together into a large chunk floating in the air. In one of the flows is the Orange Emerald, which situates itself in the core and suddenly bursts out energy.

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[[ORANGE]]

While the ground falls, rises, splinters apart and mashes together, the giant burning form above spews out globs of hot metal and balls of fire in all directions. Sonic must navigate this terrain and these coming hazards as he makes his way towards the nonliving beast. After a short while, the blazing arms that feed the amorphous shape its material cool into solid metal bridges. Sonic makes his way to the closest one and climbs up its many ledges. The coldness reaches the being itself, but the metal is fragile and once Sonic comes to it a single hit shatters the entire arm and a large chunk of its body. The impact sends him flying back, so he must make his way through fire and brimstone to the other arms to deal more damage. After 4 hits, it is left with only 2 arms, causing it to tip over and crash into the ground with a mighty slam.

Yet there is still metal around the Emerald. A jet of fire launches it off the ground and into the air. Before Sonic can chase it, it launches small projectiles toward the ground, which then explode upon collision. The explosions destroy what little structure the ground had left, and many pillars of metal sink into a pit of lava below. There are still some, whose surface is mostly flat, which stand still or sink slowly enough that Sonic can build momentum as he leaps across the certain death below. On larger plateaus, Sonic will need to avoid not just blobs of hot metal and balls of fire, but pillars of heat that sears the sky itself and tear through the ground (which then quickly dissipate) as well as the missiles the Emerald container launches in the hundreds over the destroyed land. If he can catch up, he must only wait for the container to fall once more, as the air rushing by it cools it into a solid. Moving at the same speed as it, he must only hit it from below as it falls down to deal a hit. Once it hits the ground, though, another column of burning air sends it skyward once again. Each hit sheds more metal from its body and it can attack less and less.

After 4 hits, the final bits of metal are dispelled, and the Orange Emerald jets off.

Sonic can now clearly see himself in the reflective surface of the gargantuan ball, although even now it is still far away. Its proximity seems to flatten the curvature. Even slower now does the next wave of light emerge from deep within, until finally it is covered in, strangely, a gray light which floods over all of the objects in sight, including Sonic himself.

The lava below has since cooled. Sparse now are the towers of former ground, standing at oblique angles over the new ground far below. Sonic stands and watches as the Grey Emerald flies by, and then stops, hovering in mid-air. It glows, and soon metal comes toward it as if magnetically attracted, with arcs of electricity streaming between pieces which form rotating layers of shielding around it.

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[[GREY]]

The final Emerald's container creates for itself many cannons which immediately attack. They fire lasers and bolts of electricity which scorch the ground, as well as blasts of plasma and ions that in an explosion of energy rip through the metal. It has larger cannons which at a much slower rate fire gamma rays and an energy beam that cause the material they hit to simply disintegrate into gluons and quarks. Sonic must run as fast as possible. Whether he is leaping from the diagonal cylinders or running on the flat surface far below, he must not stop or suffer immediate (albeit painless) death. The towers may disappear underneath his feet, and the Emerald may fire beams ahead of him to cover the ground with spots of radiation, but he must not stop.

Around the Emerald are many islands of metal floating within its powerful energy field. By jumping from one to another he can close in, until he reaches the behemoth itself. The cannons do not turn inward, leaving Sonic some breathing room as he makes his way through the layers of metal interspersed with connecting strings of energy. Once he reaches the core, he finds the Grey Emerald unprotected, simply floating in the center of it all. With one last jump he goes to grab it, but it disappears in a small flash of light.

Without the Emerald, the pieces around it simply fall. Sonic rushes to escape through the internal caverns he needlessly explored until he leaps out into the sky.

But there is no sky. Only the ball of glass remains, and it is falling closer and closer to the ground. Sonic hits the ground, which is now featureless, a blank sheet of metal stretching to infinity, awaiting the collision with no feeling and no thought. Sonic, standing upon it, has nowhere to run.

Sonic waits.

Without a sound, the surface comes closer. It reflects all of the textureless surface. It reflects Sonic. Without any height reference, it is almost as if the ground was reflected like it was before, coming closer and closer to meet itself. Sonic saw himself, as well, standing, looking at himself, waiting to meet himself. He could only judge how close the ball was by how close his own reflection was, how readily he could see the details of his own body.

As the ball finally gets within reach, Sonic has no other option but to thrust his spinning body into it. With every hit, the entire surface flashes with light, which floods the entire real surface with light, for a brief moment. It cracks a tiny amount, and a tiny amount more for each additional hit.

Sonic has about 10 seconds to deliver 8 hits, or be crushed to death by his own reflection.

Otherwise, on the final hit, he smashes through. Gravity suddenly reverses, and the shards of glass fall with him towards the center of the ball. He falls, farther and farther, the interior of the surface seemingly non-existent, and within seconds of accelerating away even the hole to the outside seems to disappear. The background is of a single hue slowly changing, gradient in value.

.

Sonic lands on a solid platform, a fairly long circle that seemingly has no width. In an instant, rings of energy far in the distant background appear at the points of 3 orthogonal axes, moving from one side to the other, superimposed. They bring with them waves of color which appear transparent over each other and yet mix at the same time.

As this happens, 3 giant figures appear at the points of an equilateral triangle. They each appear as a point and rapidly change into varying 3-dimensional shapes, each a cross-section of an extra dimensional entity. Sonic notices the familiar patterns of Mechanix's holy design engraved upon the many surfaces he sees. Within a minute, his face is fully and identically formed from the 3 figures, staring back at him with featureless globes for eyes. And yet, despite being exactly the same, immediately impressed within Sonic's head are 3 completely different faces. Aiding this notion were the infinite dreadlocks of energy, somehow polarized into a particular direction. Their surfaces bristled with energy and color, with each face having a range of colors for the same approximate hue and saturation.

- The first head has horizontal energy spindles exiting from its sides, and its color is mostly cyan. Across its surfaces there is a flow of energy which curved and eddied, affecting the color.

- The second head has energy spindles which disturbingly emerged forward from the face and backward from the back of the head, and its color is mostly magenta. The energy flow on this head seemed to spike and turn with sharp corners.

- The third head has vertical energy spindles reaching up from its brow and down from its chin, and its color is mostly yellow. The energy flow is uniform and parallel, although the angle of total movement changes.

They begin to revolve around the circle in formation. They move faster and faster until they form a blur of changing color.

Suddenly, they stop. The first head is to the left of the circle, and the second head is opposed on the other side of the diameter, to the right.

The many forms of the first head oscillate in increasing amplitudes until it is a blur of color in a single position, when it stops and instantly reverts to its normal state. As it does so, in the background there is an increase of rings which move "leftwards" or "rightwards". Balls of light flash above the circle, and what emerges is a basic creature (each is destroyed in a hit unless otherwise noted), of the following types:

- Point

- A metal ball with small spikes laid perpendicular to each other that moves towards Sonic to hurt him.

- A small cloud of energy which lays close to the face to protect it.

- A gooey ball of energy which floats about.

- Line

- A metal straightedge with a sharpened blade that spins while moving towards Sonic.

- A metal pillar of variable height which attaches to the floor (2 hits).

- A gooey stick of energy which floats about unless there are 2 gooey balls it can attach between.

- Plane

- A metal polygon with sharp vertices (from 3 to 8 sides) which spins toward Sonic.

- An energy barrier which lays itself in front of the face (3 hits).

- A gooey, amorphous field of energy which will float about unless there are 3 gooey balls connected by 3 gooey sticks which it attaches between.

- Space

- A metal polyhedron spins toward Sonic (2 hits).

- A metal shape with 2 parallel flat surfaces lays itself somewhere on the floor (or on other shapes) (4 hits).

- A gooey blob of energy which will float about unless there are 4 gooey balls connected by 6 gooey sticks connected by 4 gooey planes.

- Time or n+1 space

- A metal polychoron spins (in 4 dimensions) toward Sonic (3 hits).

- An energy figure which exists simultaneously in different time frames places itself somewhere above or on the floor, to disappear and appear readily when Sonic is near it at some future point as a barrier (5 hits).

- A gooey 4-blob of energy which will float about unless there are 5 gooey balls connected by 10 gooey sticks connected by 10 gooey planes connected by 5 gooey 3-blobs, which it will attach between and push the 3-shape into the 4th dimension.

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The forms of the second head do not oscillate, but instead switch between different positions in one instantaneous teleportation. It changes to several positions, flitting between them at an increasing rate until it appears to occupy all of the positions at once. In the background, there is an increase of rings moving "forwards" and "backwards". It then ceases movement and becomes still while it attacks with one of the following:

- A point which explodes into a sphere of energy that thins as it expands, to a point of safety at a certain range marked by its faded color. It may move, but the energy will be lost more quickly.

- A single beam of energy with width some small multiple of Sonic's width cast at any angle but most often parallel to the floor (Sonic must jump or spindash under) or perpendicular to it (at the position Sonic occupies). It may move but this will shorten the beam.

- A field upon the floor or in the air which is filled with energy but quickly decomposes.

- A polarized wave which oscillates between dangerous and harmless energy.

- A polygon of energy which takes a particular trajectory whose curve could be represented as a polynomial with degree equal to the amount of sides of the polygon (e.g. 2-simplex is linear, 3-simplex is quadratic, etc.)

- A sequence of static sinusoids of energy suspended above the floor, interrupted at varying positions, which descend upon, into, and out of the floor (Sonic must move into these gaps).

- Energy projectiles which has trajectories identical to the logarithmic or exponential curve and which increase speed either logarithmically or exponentially respectively.

Sonic can attack the heads directly on any point, which temporarily disturbs their structural consistencies. 24 hits is enough to cause the visible 3D form of the face to disintegrate into a massless amalgamation of localized energy. It will still exist, rotating in place during the rotation phase, having its particular color range and occasionally flickering together smaller 3D forms of the greater 4D structure.

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The forms of the third head do not change position, but instead the very structure itself fluctuates in density of mass and intensity of energy. The rings in the background moving "up" and "down" will increase in number as it does this. The fluctuations become wider and wider until its details vanish completely under its glow, where it then stops instantly. It then resurrects one of any other face or created object that was destroyed. Any attacks that were avoided before may also be brought back without the summoning of the second head.

During the rotation phase, Sonic can try to jump off of the circle, although if he is hit by a revolving head he will be struck back on. He may also try to jump after destroying all 3 heads (if there is 1 head left, it will revolve around the circle to Sonic's position in a shorter time than that needed for him to completely leave the circle) as the third head cannot resurrect itself.

Below, facing upwards, is a much larger head, with no forms but its shape in pure black. Sonic will fall and bounce on it up to 3 times before gravity reverses and Sonic falls on the reverse side of the circle. If any of the heads remain, they will lower their position but will not rotate vertically. The fourth head will then move down from its position and pass through everything, including Sonic, while rotating to keep facing the circle. As it passes through, the circle will change shape, the surface deforming into the maximum and minimum positions of a harmonic oscillation. The background's main hue will rapidly change as it does so, calming down as it returns to an unmoving position.

After 12 hits on the fourth face, regardless of the other faces, everything around Sonic will instantly disappear into a black abyss. Sonic will then be blinded by the light of the 7 Chaos Emeralds which hover around him in a circle. They then spiral inwards and Sonic unquestioningly transforms into Super Sonic.

.

The black slowly fades away, and Sonic finds himself standing on a familiarly textured surface. He sees it expand far, but not infinitely far (although it may seem as much), and his eyes are quickly greeted by the burning blue fires of Mechanix's eyes within his true head of infinite locks. Mobius rotates slowly, and energy flows through space in the pattern he saw clearly before. Despite the incredibly vivid hallucination, he managed to open for himself a new path in the battle.

Sonic can now fling himself into any surface of Mechanix, making energy flash radially away from the impact, flaking off pieces of metal. He can continually pummel the same area, but after only a few hits it begins to heal as particles coalesce and reform the same structures. So Sonic will move on, using his new movement to fly over the ever-changing Mechanix landscape.

Cylinders and columns within his skin jut out in expectation of Sonic, baring cannons and caches of projectiles.

- They fire rapid spinning pulses of energy and rocket-propelled grenades which smartly home in behind him. Although Sonic will not be hurt if he is hit by any of these, it will slow him down.

- Some cannons from far away can be seen charging up before they fire massive blasts of plasma aimed at Sonic.

- Some fire charged, burning hot metal stakes to pierce him.

- Some fire balls of fire,

- strange particles which oscillate in waves,

- and hypersonic bullets targeting Sonic's head.

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Additionally, Mechanix will use his infinite hands.

- He slams his hands flat from above

- or punches with tightly curled fists from the sides.

- He may use more than one to squish Sonic in between

- or imprison him within his palm.

Of course, Sonic can simply dash into any of these to destroy them.

Furthermore, Sonic will occasionally see a line of rings leading on, which he needs to get. They will often curve wildly, sometimes even into loops. But most of these lines lead straight into a trap, such as a steel cage about to be destroyed by energy beams, crushing walls or a burning pit of lava, or a valley with walls covered in laser cannons.

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As Sonic approaches Mechanix's head, the surface of his body changes more rapidly and with more purpose. Hills will rise and attempt to squish Sonic in between, or pillars will stab into space and stab each other hundreds of times with smaller columns forming a dense web of metal to constrict Sonic's movement. The ground may twist and spiral into a spinning column of sharp metal around Sonic that he must carefully navigate out of, or it may simply fling exploding chunks of itself at Sonic.

- Additionally, there are blocks which fire several cannons at once, with tens of straight lasers displaced by narrow angles which burn across Sonic's path simultaneously.

- There is also a pillar with a lens which slowly builds up energy until it suddenly unleashes a flash which scorches everything not covered in shadow (so Sonic must throw himself towards the ground to hide, momentarily).

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Finally, he faces the true head of Mechanix, with its infinite locks and blue eyes which burn into reality itself. Floating in space, without constituting space itself, the many patterns of lines and shapes which bare meaning to Mechanix's being are denser than ever before, constantly pulsing with energy.

His hands attack. If Sonic is hit, he will be flung backwards, away from his goal. Along with previous actions, they do the following:

- Grasp all fingers but their index and thumb, which stretch out wide in the form of a gun, and fire one-by-one long beams of energy with arcs of electricity that burn around it. The hands may also stretch a finger in place of the index to fire a different type of beam, that is:

- Middle: A sequence of annuli of varying radii that Sonic must choose to fly through or around

- Ring: A nonstop volley of rapid-fire energy bursts which it often disperses to form an oncoming field of bullets

- Pinky: Tiny balls of energy which connect to each other by electric arcs, forming a narrow, dangerous path that Sonic must enter and clear

- Bend all fingers and fire lasers from each end, so that they intersect behind Sonic. Then, the fingers are closed, forcing Sonic towards the hand, which he must break through before it crushes him in a fist.

- Flings the fingers from the palm to launch out compact balls of energy which then explode into multiple circular waves of small energy pellets. They may also snap their fingers to launch out faster and larger balls directly at Sonic.

In addition, the locks of Mechanix will bend and attempt to strike Sonic, by:

- whipping,

- stabbing,

- or entrapping him.

The eyes only have one attack:

- They open wide, covering everything with a blue hue from the light of a powerful energy beam aimed at Sonic, which will actually hurt him and take away a large portion of his rings.

The only rings laid out before Mechanix's head will always lead to a trap, of which every means of escape will be trapped, to a degree of 5 (as before). Sonic will have no choice if he is running low but to brave these gauntlets.

Sonic will only be able to damage the head if he is going fast enough. Mechanix will otherwise create a barrier of energy that pushes Sonic back to where his attacks are more plentiful. Each hit causes a flash of energy throughout the face and even in the trails of energy in space itself. Sonic can at most make 4 hits, and for every 4 hits, Mechanix creates a temporary shield in Sonic's path after deflecting him that he must break (with 2 hits for the first, 4 for the second, 6 for the third and so on). The head begins to crack at 20 hits, and the attacks will become more frequent and more powerful to keep him at bay.

After 41 hits, the face shatters all at once. Energy floods out in bursts and waves until nothing is left. The metal flies far into space, all of it eventually slowing and turning back towards Mobius to burn up.

.

Sonic does not celebrate. The entire time, throughout the explosion, the blue eyes remained. The fire, the solid color burning itself into space so thickly, despite coming from nothing, looked back at Sonic without changing its gaze with a single wince. Not even the patterns of space laid over them, and for a moment which seemed to last forever, the eyes grew brighter and brighter, consuming everything Sonic can see including his own body. For this brief moment, all he could perceive, let alone think about, is the blue.

Surging forth from his shoulders, the metallic material places infinitesimal pieces of itself together, bit-by-bit by the billions, in a matter of seconds. Shapes grow and take form, lending structural support to the whole which quickly manifests its identity. Sonic shakes his head but the omnipresent blue recedes into transparency afterward, by its own whim. He dashes forward and slams through chunks of the material, but it grows back even faster. He dashes through every chunk he can most quickly reach but as soon as it's destroyed it returns again.

Sonic tries to calm himself and flies in front, looking at the situation in total to find some weak spot, some part that wasn't the same. He could not. Just as he makes this judgment, the growth accelerates and within seconds the head is reformed.

.

Mechanix, in an instant faster than Sonic can see, moves his infinite hands into a position consisting of complex symbols that nevertheless interlock seamlessly into a larger form. Then, in an instant faster than Sonic can feel, his limbs are held by massive fingers of several hands at once and he is stretched wide. He is in Super form, but he yells in pain as they are pulled to the brink of their flexibility effortlessly by the massive hands. He then sees a palm that had appeared before him, but before he could register what it was the 7 Chaos Emeralds disappear from his grasp and appear in a flash in the hand before him, which then snaps shut into a fist. Sonic then feels his limbs bounce back and realizes the pressure is gone from them, but as he does he forgets to notice the fist before him suddenly flash into a texture-less white. He does not register the punch as a punch as his body lies flat against its knuckle. For a few split seconds he can feel the pain crawl into his body, into all parts of his body, and it seems unreal. Sonic then instantly recalls another unreal moment, almost exactly like this, and he realizes his body isn't surging with the energy he had even before he had turned Super.

Mechanix is flying away, far, far into the distance. He feels a pull from behind him grow stronger and stronger. His mind, slipping across all of the sensations which just happened in only a few short seconds finally grabs hold of the fact that he remembered this before. Sonic then pushes his energy back to stop himself from again re-entering Mobius' atmosphere. As he slows himself down his mind catches up. He then realizes that he left Hyper mode, somehow. He turns and sees Mobius spinning fast below him, and remembers this was how it was before the battle began.

And then the pain surges through his body. He bends over but there is nothing to support him. He does not let himself give in again, and remembers the Chaos Emeralds being taken away from him. He looks back at Mechanix, only to see a massive energy beam, one half the size but hundreds of times the strength of the Egg Eraser-breaker beam, coming straight towards him. He dashes to the side and yet time does not speed up for him. Sonic then figures Mechanix must have realized to stop using the Black Emerald for attacks.

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Mechanix, his massive, infinitely complex form, begins to move. He flies around even faster than Sonic can, but Sonic can not determine the pattern before he launches more of the super-powerful beams at him. Even at this distance, he barely avoids them.

Sonic then realizes another thing as the blue haze around him turns red. He quickly whips around to see the wispy white cloudscape vanished and immense tracts of land below seared open, burning.

For a moment, Sonic thinks of everything he went through to defeat Mechanix, and he thinks of all of the battles Mechanix made him hallucinate and all of the damage that was instantly recovered.

Mechanix stops for a moment. His entire body glows brighter, and the space around him starts to distort, distant stars seemingly pulled into him.

Sonic finally pushes himself back into orbit, his back to space. He then remembers the first time he fought Mechanix, so long ago when he was just awakened. He was easy to beat. He didn't have a single Emerald.

And then Sonic remembered the damage he did deal, when he only had the Chaos Emeralds.

Mechanix then releases hundreds of super-powerful lasers and seemingly millions of other energy attacks at once. They cover all that Sonic can see, all of it aimed at and around him.

As he feels his Super form lose power, he dashes at full speed towards Mechanix.

- There are hundreds of beams of every sort of width all around Sonic.

- There are energy bombs that explode in shock waves and others that explode in smaller pellets (which themselves explode into shock waves or even smaller pellets).

As Sonic gets closer to Mechanix, Mechanix will move away.

- He fires thousands of smart and dumb missiles and energy attacks of almost every sort of shape and trajectory.

Sonic loses energy unless he's near a large beam, which charges him a small amount. But if he skirts their edge without placing himself in them, he will gain power quicker.

When Sonic gets in range, Mechanix will attack with his hands.

- Unlike before, where the hands attacked one after another or in small groups, the hands attack all at once. As they move about, they seem to leave afterimages which in reality are just more hands following behind. All of their former attacks are used again, adding to the confusion with even more attacks aimed at Sonic. Several hands will attempt to grab Sonic as others fire blasts and more others form a wall of palms and a net of fingers.

- Mechanix also attacks with his locks and with the Super-damaging blue beam, which is fired much more often.

.

As Sonic approaches Mechanix's body, the attacks will lessen as he avoids the range of most of his body attacks.

- However, he will attack by now charging energy through the patterns in space, which are now dangerous and must be avoided.

- In addition, Mechanix will move his fists and locks at near-instant speed, which can only be predicted by a glow of energy in the space from their direction very shortly before the attack.

After a grueling entry, Sonic will come towards a circular area on Mechanix's chest. As he does, a translucent energy bubble appears over it, and cannons suddenly appear everywhere, firing everything they have at Sonic. He breaks through each in his way, but then he notices the spirit form of Mechanix hounding him down from behind. While avoiding all of the attacks, Sonic aims to hit the vertices of a pentagon circumscribed by the circle. With each hit, the energy surges from the one point to the two points opposite it underneath the bubble. After all are hit, a pentagram forms and the bubble pops.

He flies toward the center of the circle and dashes repeatedly into the metal, breaking it bit by bit. After 24 hits, he crashes through Mechanix's stomach which quickly heals behind him.

.

[[**Zexagalaxius Zone** Act 1]]

_For all the Acts of this Zone, every animated object besides Sonic will be moving to the rhythm of the music, although not everything will be on the one._

Sonic falls. The wall he broke through, covered in conduits of pulsing energy and lights flashing and changing color, quickly becomes more and more distant until it nearly fades away as if it became the sky itself. He lands on a shiny steel floor which stood before a massive machine of moving parts. Looking around, he sees many more, and all of these machines are interlocked together in some way, with the horizon mostly obscured by their massive presence. The machines are either covered in lights, filled with moving energy, or painted in some pattern to make everything constantly colorful and animated to the point of information overload. Sonic need not worry about keeping his energy up, being within Mechanix himself.

Sonic runs on, and the steel floor beneath him narrows into a wide thoroughfare which flies high above the moving parts. Streams, waves and pulses of energy fly over head. As he looks far above the landscape he sees it changing on a much larger scale (_in a way represented by the movements of the song_). Before he can take it all in, he will be attacked from above by flying spheres of energy. They lob bombs and fire beams at Sonic, although he can defeat them all if he makes a well-placed wall-jump from one to the other. He'll pass by massive blocks and cylinders of metal, rotating, revolving, displacing over, under, in, and around each other, transferring energy rapidly even through seemingly unnecessary flourishes. Yet again, his wonder will be attacked as robots ride on the road next to him. They consist of triangle frames and wheels spinning and moving around each other constantly. They try to leap in front of Sonic to box and crush him, or simply try to leap on him. Sonic can damage them if he can hit the frames instead of the wheels, and 3 hits destroys one.

The road will then split ahead of Sonic, pieces lowering to make gaps to interrupt his movement. As he jumps over these, the final stretch quickly collapses itself underneath his feet, surprising him as he flies straight towards two massive gears spinning out of each other.

He lands on a massive moving structure, and must jump from moving piece to moving piece, avoiding every path that leads to getting himself squished, to make headway. He tends to find himself inside the shadow of many layers of pieces fairly shortly, only for an object he's on to eject out and spin around the exterior, to go back in once again. There are tall cylinders with gears that move back and forth while spinning, colliding into each other so the teeth mesh. Sonic must wall-jump up these often to move vertically. There are tubes which he will fall into, from which he must swiftly escape or be crushed by a rushing piston. Levers, pulleys, conveyor belts, wheels and cylinders gyrate on in a confusing dance of flashing colors and shiny objects.

Upon escaping this monstrosity, he reaches a long, tall wall stretching far away, which he enters. Within, the ceiling is short, a burst of light flashing from lamp to lamp down long, narrow paths. The paths themselves split, curve, turn and spin, occasionally cut into by open energy conduits which more directly move across the wall (generally). Both will frequently open up into very tall but thin chasms that reach to the true floor far, far below. There are moving parts, here, some as small as a platform as wide as Sonic, some as large as a part he encountered before but by itself. He needs to master timing first and jumping of both sorts to make his way upwards. Near the top of the wall the path will make its way to breach out into the exterior onto a flat, steady path, but if Sonic finds himself at the bottom he must avoid the grinding, crushing parts exposed below the floor.

Sonic will go between these three types of areas:

- the wide road,

- the super-structure,

- and the narrow wall.

He goes through each several times before he sees an opening in the wider floor below. He leaps off whatever he's on far above it and zips inside.

He will find himself in a familiar situation, avoiding moving pieces while enclosed in a giant moving piece sliding across other moving pieces. Crushing hazards hound him as gaps close and open before him, forcing him to think fast and keep moving. He cannot rely only on his speed, as he soon finds himself taking several different paths one after another but not changing position at all. If he can beat this high-pressure area, he moves below into a relatively small mechanical room lit up by hundreds of tiny lights, situated at the sealed blast door entrance to a pipe that leads farther down.

.

[[**Zexagalaxius Zone** Act 1 Boss]]

A robot of small parts spinning around an energy core enters from another path.

- It immediately sends out bolts of energy which fix into certain positions, creating highly reflective spheres floating stationary.

- It first fires laser pulses that reflect off one and another before aiming at Sonic. It increases the amount of pulses to surround him. Although Sonic will not be hurt, his energy will be sapped.

- The robot then fires a continuous laser beam, blocking off a section of the floor and wall. It may fire more pulses, move that beam, or fire a new one (especially after being dealt damage) to constrict his movement further. Sonic can respond by carefully wall-jumping from sphere to sphere until he can reach the machine and smash into it.

Each hit removes its armor and exposes more energy, which leaks out more readily. After 8 hits, all of its armor is removed and it disappears the mirror spheres. It then fires pulses in waves and showers, at Sonic and all around the room. Sonic must use momentum and the walls to land more hits. With more hits piling on, the energy robot fires continuous beams which it spins around the room, but that doesn't stop Sonic from delivering the damage.

With 8 more hits, the energy robot ceases, its form bending and bursting with instability. It then drops like a rock, crashing into the blast door and exploding, peeling it apart. Sonic takes a breath, then jumps in.

.

[[**Zexagalaxius Zone** Act 2]]

_For this particular Act, the moving colors and objects, autonomous or not, besides Sonic, will move in rhythm to the beat of the music. Sound effects occur at even intervals of the beat and are harmonious with the song, such that every component of the song could be considered to be sound effects in some way._

Sonic starts running down the side of the tube. Immediately, a burst of energy resonates through it and changes the somewhat drab, electronics-covered walls into one covered in glowing, changing lights and bright, pulsating solids and gradients. The tube then slowly curves horizontally until Sonic is running on the "bottom". The walls then change to glass, supported by an exterior metal structure which takes on many shapes, from simple rings connected by straight lines to diagonals connecting helices to even more complicated, bending structures which rush by as Sonic runs through. Surrounding the tube are floating, smoothly designed mechanical objects that seem to serve a purpose but defy any explanation based on their appearance and movement. Between these are hundreds of other tubes, distantly separated, moving in different directions within a very large tube that seems to be the size of a small continent (bended concave into an elongated loop). The large tube very slowly rotates, its varied landscape changing slowly as Sonic moves forward, reflecting different hues of light and showing off different worlds of machinery and energy far away. Everything has its own color, a color which quickly changes based on an individual algorithm which itself may change based on surrounding objects' color-changing identities. Sonic can run around the sides of the tube.

Any directed energy attacks will sap Sonic's Super form of energy, but this is inconsequential unless he continues to have his energy sapped, which will make his golden color desaturate until it becomes grey. At this point, Sonic will return to normal, but any attack at all will instantly kill him then.

Sonic runs on. From behind him, 3 spinning triangle enemies appear in tune with the music.

- They each fire, in succession and diagonally, small laser blasts which will sap Sonic's energy.

- They will then fly forward and fire backwards in the same way, then descend to Sonic's level and fire straight at him, if Sonic is behind them. If not, they will wait until he is ahead to attack from behind.

- They then move up and change positions twice before making another direct attack.

Sonic can move around the tube to attack them quickly or wait until they come to his level and move to strike. Each takes one hit.

- Another type of enemy comes forward in a beam and travels as a ball within that beam (rather quickly). It then fires another continuous beam at an angle which bounces (to the beat) off the walls, and then moves on this beam to the final point before firing again. This takes two hits.

- A large jellyfish-like robot with slowly glowing lights inside jettisons itself forward. Once it gets close, it will bend its arm one joint after another on each beat while moving forward. It will push itself forward until it is ahead of Sonic, and then float backwards to catch him and then sap the energy out of him directly. Three hits on its head destroys its armor and keeps its arm from bending more to reach Sonic, and one hit from behind or on its unprotected head destroys it.

- A ring within the tube is pushed forward by rocket-powered carts separated from their wheels by long legs.. They are suspended over the floor, and shoot a connecting beam between their legs to mounts on a ring on the same plane exterior to the tube, twice its radius. The carts only run on the supports outside the tube, as if magnetically pulled, causing it to rotate in the same direction with the same speed. The carts shoot energy to each other as well, creating lines of energy which will sap Sonic's strength and crush him if he touches the carts. He must try to run between them and jump through the plane between the tube and two lines of the shortest arc, marked by a slight glow in the air. This will cause the wheels of one of the carts to malfunction and stop, slowing it down and allowing Sonic to spindash and destroy the cart. With the penultimate cart is destroyed, the final cart will slow down to a stop before everything explodes.

.

Sonic then enters one of the floating things by a narrow circular tube within the tube. It opens up back into a new tube with mechanical floors. No enemies follow him here.

Suddenly, before him segments of the word jab out of the ground and slam into each other in front of him. They continue to do so in random locations which Sonic can tell are coming from the beat and a brief glow of the segment's top before it comes out. Alternatively, there can be segments of the floor that simply are there, glowing pieces of floor that sap Sonic's energy which take up most of the space, leaving a few or just one path for Sonic to keep on.

After that ordeal, a sound will slowly emerge until it overtakes most of the music's voices. A cylinder chasing behind, with gyrating gears of death churning making all of the noise. There are a number of glass shields covering smaller machines, and an energy barrier where one would be. After destroying a shield, and then jumping to take out the machine, for every machine, the barrier is dispelled revealing a hole in the machine to its other side. Sonic must then jump through and deal damage to its engine on its back (4 hits), although he must avoid the circling ball of sap energy. After 4 hits, the engine explodes, cracking the machine into pieces with Sonic again on the other side.

The transparent floor reappears, and the older robots attack in larger numbers and more combinations. Also appearing are two more:

- A steel ball floats down the center. It then creates an energy sapping plane on xy, xz or yz and moves it slowly. Two hits destroy it.

- An energy ball floats in and moves around in a preset, cycling pattern (following the beat). It fires a powerful energy sapping beam at Sonic's location. It memorizes this location for this point in the cycle, and after completing its movement and returning to this spot it will fire in the same place as well as where Sonic is now (saving his positions up to 5 places per one spot).

After this area, the tube explodes. Sonic falls faster and faster towards the distant ground far below. After a while, he lands on a steep slope of a mechanical mountain. He then rolls into a dense machinery area, constantly glowing and flashing with energy. The environment is so large that the scenery only changes twice this battle (if Sonic waits long enough) to a flatter zone with more layers of height, and an area with winding roads between soaring vertical towers.

.

[[**Zexagalaxius Zone** Act 2 Boss]]

A sentry is sent to destroy Sonic. It consists of two sphere-like amalgamations of moving machinery connected by twirling strands of ribbon-like energy. As it moves, the glow of its changing energy leaves trailers in space, while its mechanical parts leave a static afterimage.

- It attacks by shooting out multiple, parallel sap lasers at once, and then firing again at different locations (Sonic must stay in the gaps between them).

- It also launches from within to above it a smaller robot. This spawn has a capsule-like body attached to two smaller transparent spheres filled with energy. One hit on these destroys them.

- These small spheres shoot out pulse beams which Sonic must hurdle.

- Once the energy is depleted, the capsule launches the spheres like rockets which then explode with sap energy.

- It then fires a larger laser which Sonic can jump over or roll under.

- The sentry can also let loose many small, bouncing blobs of energy circled by small metal plates. These distract Sonic as it charges up a powerful energy blast which will sap most of Sonic's energy very quickly. Sonic can jump through the small blobs towards one of the sentry's spheres to damage it.

After 4 hits on one sphere or the other, it stops attacking. Most of the ribbons detach from one sphere and extend outwards into a circle. They then spin around like thin blades as the spheres pull themselves together, separated by this energy fan. Sonic must go through the rotating ribbon-blades to the other side and damage the other sphere, which will then start attacking him.

- Meanwhile the sphere on the initially same side as Sonic will glow and release energy in beams one after another, nonstop, at his location.

- The other sphere can also spawn the triangle enemies.

After 4 hits on one sphere, it will lose its inner glow and fall to the ground, bouncing once before rolling back (Sonic should make sure to jump if it's in front of him). It is still attached by ribbons, and now all the ribbons change to help tug it. The sentry will roll the dead sphere back and forth to roll over Sonic. It builds momentum, eventually causing the dead sphere to swing off of the ground like a pendulum. With enough momentum, it starts swinging it in circles, slamming it into the ground at Sonic's position to crush him to death. However, on the upswing the live sphere will be closer to the ground, giving Sonic a chance to attack it.

With 4 final hits on the last sphere, it makes one final swing at Sonic before losing its energy and flinging itself far forward, to crash into the ground in a large explosion, ripping open a hole.

.

Sonic jumps in and falls through the scaffolding. Before he enters the other side, a burst of energy rushes past. He looks at his hands and the color on them seems to float off of them, like its own entity. His body feels distant. He drops into a giant space with seemingly no walls. Energy seems to radiate from a central source far away, in pulses and waves at the beat of the music. It is constantly changing in form and the form of forms. Sonic pushes energy in a burst behind him, and makes himself fly towards the source.

.

[[**Zexagalaxius Zone** Act 3]]

As Sonic approaches the source, the energy will move and change at a faster pace, along with the music. Every object which appears will engage in actions which create a melody with pitches related to its vertical position and time related to its horizontal position. Each hue is related to its own note class. As colors blend, so too does sound, which can no longer be differentiated from the music to the point that actions seem to be generated by the music itself, almost, predestined.

With no physical obstacles in his path so far, Sonic is immediately attacked. Each enemy of a different type constitutes a different "voice" in the song.

- For example, there are small, simple enemies that fly straight, to then dip at an angle or curve which represents a portamento. Some may interrupt the dip at regular intervals to rather represent a glissando.

- There are also shooters whose bullets fade in and out, reflected in a change of volume.

- Then there are the oblong fliers, which split in half to a certain distance (or expanding constantly). Each half ejects a beam of sap energy either outside or inside (to each other).

- Larger enemies which concentrate on attacking Sonic will eject a larger variety of attacks and even smaller enemies, which can only be damaged at specific marked weak spots.

After a fair share of time breaking through the waves of foes, Sonic starts to feel a growing flanging effect on his perception. Everything he sees and hears is at first bright, but it fades away until everything blurs, when everything then changes state at full intensity before fading away again. In this way, his perception is cut into discrete pieces which disturbs his earlier feelings of continuity. He then notices that he was being attacked by the forward members of a massive armada all sent to attack him. He is then immediately confronted by the surface of a large battleship. Its attacks are many:

- straight torpedos,

- lasers and energy pulses,

- parabolic mortars,

- homing and remote-detonated rockets,

- as well as opening gates and ports for smaller enemies to come out and attack.

Sonic can stay away and attempt to avoid the full assault, or he can dive into the launch bays and fly within the narrow internal passages. They will lead him to the core which is protected by gyrating, crushing shields on the outside and a dense sap energy field on the inside. He must make it in one go to dash through the glowing sphere which pulses to the beat, to cause a chain reaction which sends a wall of exploding flame to engulf the area right behind Sonic as he barely escapes.

After braving the armada, Sonic will finally reach the flagship.

.

[[**Zexagalaxius Zone** Act 3 Boss]]

As before, Sonic will face an onslaught of enemies and attacks all at once. Sonic can enter the ship early to avoid the attacks but face very narrow, sharply turning internal corridors. There will also be small runner robots within which will shoot beams of sap energy and of a new type of energy which will slow Sonic down. After a long fight either way, Sonic will reach the core. The flanging continues, seemingly slowing time to a stop in each moment while still being constantly moving.

The core room is very large and constantly spinning, but Sonic will remain still on one plane. The core itself protected by a shield from generators, which themselves are surrounded by cannons. In a manner reminiscent of _Sonic 1_'s final boss, it first pushes large metal blocks in position to crush Sonic, although they can be seen moving on the floor and ceiling as the room turns. It then attacks with all of its cannons at once, creating a bullet hell of sap and slow beams and pulses. Sonic must navigate through this highly dangerous battlefield to each turret all around the room to dispatch them and then the generators they protect.

When half of the generators are destroyed, the core will launch from within a fleet of homing missiles towards Sonic. This is where he must be constantly moving to escape them in a circle around the core, for once one hits him he will slow down enough for the others to hit him, making him easy prey for a death from squish or sap which now rush by even faster than before. He must aim for his targets and swipe through them in one go as he avoids his own death.

With the final generator destroyed, the shield disappears. The core then closes a large steel empty cylinder around it which Sonic narrowly squeezes through.

The flanging is now in full force. With every fading moment Sonic's mind wanders away, to where the massive core seems like a small ball far in the distance. Everything feels miniscule while still being larger than he. The inside of the cylinder is lined with rings of circling energy. The glow of the core lights up the entire area. It then attacks directly with thousands of radially launched energy attacks, a few of which are like strings which attach to the walls' rings and then rotate around the room.

- Sap strings are generally of warmer colors while slow strings are generally of cooler colors.

- Then there are the neutral, smallest, but brightest strings of them all, which if Sonic flies into, he will then be carried directly through the core to the other side in what seems like a flash, effectively being a "hit".

With 16 such hits, the core overloads, sending out massive blasts of energy which rip holes through the cylinder walls. Sonic takes one exit out and makes another daring escape as the core explodes behind him. Upon exiting the flagship, a blast of light indicates that fight has finally ended.

.

Colors flash by in rushing waves. Emerging from behind them is a radial net with gradients for strings. The water-like energy then bends over and under itself, rotating around. There are pulses of color and pulses of brightness that fuse the hues together for a short moment.

Sonic finally reaches the core of Mechanix. It is a translucent sphere, the size of a planet, with a burning center and currents of gyrating energy surrounding it in layers up to the semi-solid surface. With every pulse it gets brighter and brighter and the time between pulses slow down. Eventually, Sonic is blinded at its brightest, unable to tell where he is or what he's even doing. He loses himself, loses his feeling of balance and proportion in the constant allness. All he perceives is the sound of the beat of the core. In the pure white, with no way to tell what is him and what is not, what is perceived and what is created, he becomes the beat itself.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Endlessly. Every pulse, growing forever, sustaining eternally, dying infinitely. Pure silence that never stops. Then.

Boom.

Boom.

Suddenly, "Sonic?" a familiar voice calls.

Sonic opens his eyes. He sees his mother before him, holding out her arms for him. He runs to her, but she stays the same distance away from him. "Mom!" he shouts. Her head slowly, slowly lowers down, her arms weakening, drooping, and she moves farther and farther away. "Don't go, mom!" His legs get heavier. "No, don't go!" They stop moving; he can't push them, and soon his mother is flying far away in front of him. "No! No..." She vanishes into the horizon. He stops trying and his legs give out from under him. He falls to the ground. "This is just another hallucination... Damn it, Mechanix... Toying with me... again!"

The ground disappears. Sonic faces a massive force behind a tsunami of light and sound and every vibration possible, which rapidly builds itself through all dimensions at different speeds, all facing him. "You... are... nothing," universe-wide waves of energy that crashes into Sonic's mind, attacking all of his consciousness at once. Every part of his brain was flooded with the phrase. A new wave approached, already as Sonic slowly recovers while his body is frozen still. "You, are nothing!" Sonic feels his mind flicker, his brain stem buzzing, and then feels pain echo throughout his body. All he sees is a residue of neon ghosts morphing ominously in a dull color of green. He finally thinks, "So, with the power of a god he's finally going to kill me in a way I can't defend?" before a massive block of everything at the maximum magnitude explodes with the galaxy-destroying death screams of a trillion ultra-suns all around him. The words no longer exist as any relevant concept but it is just the same as if Sonic stood in black nothingness, unable to feel or move any part of his body or mind, stood as Mechanix in his earliest, simplest, first form simply said, "You are nothing." before vanishing, and the words "You are nothing." repeat endlessly in Sonic's head, the same words, the same tone, the same speed, with nothing else to perceive for the rest of eternity.

It is then that Sonic opened his eyes.

He is standing in a small room heavily populated by machinery that flowed together like rivers of iron and steel. There is no lighting except coming from him, as Sonic, his skin reflecting gold but absorbing the rainbow light from the seven Chaos Emeralds floating before him. Their light is dim, as tendrils of green energy connect to the large Master Emerald resting in a pedestal not too far away.

Mechanix then appears in front of him, the most refined form, reflecting the simplicity of the original while respecting the improvements of every other stage.

His eyes are directly in front of him, his hands around Sonic's neck as he is pinned to the ground, completely paralyzed. Sonic suddenly feels hundreds of sharp objects pierce all around his body, and he feels the flow of blood pulsating in all of these areas as if something was being added.

Above Mobius. It is alive with color, all bright and with sharp lines except the curvature itself, each continent filled with billions of movements of light reflecting the movement and actions of every individual object on every level of organization, such that it is an immediate encyclopedia of all current states for every category of information, recognizable at any time by anyone without need of communication. Pulsating from this sphere of truth is light that travels down seemingly synthesized patterns of roads and paths and blocks and shapes within the space all while reflecting a net-like structure of connections. Every color, every sound, every symbol and every thought emanate as one thing through the core of this world into the vast infinities of the boundless space with which it is always center.

Floating before him is the Spirit of Mechanix, burning brightly with flowing energy that resembled the truth patterns in space but yet said them in a more simplified and generalized manner that applied to all things. It was the same place as the core of the one beat, and the Spirit was exactly the same as the one which hounded him before, although its shape looks like the perfect Mechanix form he just saw.

This is when Sonic realized he was separated from these objects. He suddenly felt himself wrapped in his former skin, no longer a bubble of awareness but a chemical and bio-electrical organ trapped in bone and meat. Although he was flashing golden, his own energy radiating into space and tangling with the truth flows, he felt no less chained. Suddenly he realized, "I remember what I just saw... that must mean, Mechanix is trying to weaken the Chaos Emeralds since he knows I can defeat him in Super form even now! No matter what... even if he can extinguish me, I will fight back... even if I could only exist as an awareness of only pain and death, I will fight back. Do you hear me, Mechanix?! Can't you even read my thoughts, since you can change what I perceive?! You know that I will destroy you even if you are the god of everything and I am just a pair of eyes! You can kill me but you will always know I would have won if you let me live, and that will ultimately kill you! I am nothing... but I am not you!"

.

The World will be constantly sending out attacks in all directions.

- Sometimes a truth path will surge with sap, slow, or a third type of energy which will shock Sonic's recovery of energy for a short while and cut out a large chunk of it.

- The world will fire hundreds of thousands of bullets.

- Some will fly around aimlessly,

- others will move in some pattern but still aimlessly,

- others will lock on a trajectory to Sonic,

- others will lock on and home in smartly,

- others will try to cut Sonic off,

- some will try to lock him in a giant system of coordinated attacks,

- and other group behaviors to confuse and slow Sonic down.

- It will also fire attacks of a much larger degree,

- from the size of small regions

- to larger regions

- to large sections of continents

- to continents themselves

- to large interlocking global systems

- to a component of the planet such as a meridian or magnetic field

- to the single maximum power everything-pulsating-at-once in an attack that can only be avoided behind small packets of antimatter.

Meanwhile, the Spirit will attack with its upgraded moves:

- Several volleys of lasers, many which are maximum charged

- Several seeds of objects which grow exponentially in different ways:

- A slow diamond which grows into a block of crystals

- A sap circle which explodes like a chain reaction

- A shock square which zaps across space like lightning

- Freeze everything and suddenly dash to Sonic, attacking him with slicing and stabbing attacks from appearing and disappearing blade-like shapes to which Sonic must avoid but could possibly counter.

He can no longer stop any of Sonic's moves, create anything or recover. But he still has more attacks:

- Dash and charge an attack that pinches the space and time of a small region into a black hole, which then quickly explodes. If Sonic is hit, he will be crushed and killed.

- Fire a gamma ray burst which slows down time enough for Sonic to get out of the way, and if he is close enough counter the Spirit.

With 8 hits, the Spirit backs off, and is absorbed in a burst of energy coming from the center of the World. The Spirit is suddenly glowing with a brightness that rivals the World. In its Super form it moves twice as fast and can now directly harm Sonic, which means death if it lands just 2 hits of its own. The Spirit attacks by:

- Summoning waves of lasers that have an intricate path where Sonic must navigate without hitting the walls.

- Firing a slow beam with a sap core

- Firing homing shock missiles.

- Firing balls of dark energy, which form a parabola until they hit proximate to Sonic or otherwise suddenly feel a strong magnetic pull back to Sonic. If Sonic is in its aura but doesn't touch it, he will receive a boost in his own energy as well as having time slow down, which gives Sonic a chance to attack the Super Spirit while time is slowed/while Sonic is in hyper mode. When they are close enough they will splat into space, slowing down to a stop halfway after exploding into space puddles.

- He can control one axis of Sonic's movement, such that he is limited to moving one only one plane, but he can switch which axis in a flash of cyan, magenta or yellow reflecting the xy, xy and yz axes.

- He can control attacks from the World and focus them towards Sonic or the possible paths around him.

- When Sonic is attacking him, he will stay and fight back with:

- quick punches,

- charged plasma blasts,

- mid-distance explosion shots

- and long-distance fast piercing laser shots.

- He will occasionally use a shield if Sonic takes too long to approach him on attack.

- He can cut lines into space-time until he can suddenly remove a block of space-time, which will instantly kill Sonic if he is in it.

- Suck in large amounts of gaseous energy into a condensed ball, then sending out the ball which then grows continuously larger, burning a strong sap energy. Large blue ones make large slow explosions and then form deadly black holes which are sent spinning at Sonic. Smaller yellow ones spin around other yellow ones, emitting rays of shock energy.

After 8 more hits, the Super Spirit backs off and then dashes towards the World.

.

Sonic can choose what to do. He can chase after the Spirit into the danger of the World's surface, or he can continue on into the cosmos.

If he chooses to chase as he may want to do, the World will unleash less attacks but they have more power as Sonic hounds the Spirit down through the transparent electrified layers of atmosphere. He reaches the bottom in a dense complex of shapes and patterns, some transparent, some obstructions and others hazards and threats. The Spirit will be launching attacks back to ward Sonic off if he gets too close. Sonic will want to get as close as possible, and attack the Spirit. If he can hit him 8 more times, it will suddenly fall into the ground and lose most of its energy. Sonic will then open his eyes again.

If he does not land those 8 crucial hits, the Spirit will reach the ground and open large chasms towards the core. Sonic can concentrate on getting those final strikes but if he fails, the Spirit will merge with the core and suddenly bend the earth above Sonic to crush him to death with the weight of the entire planet. Sonic cannot harm the Spirit now, now emanating sap, slow, shock, and death energies. He must escape through the tightening fixtures of the controlled magma flows, break through virtual civilizations which all work together to destroy him, escaping from approaching oceans of pursuing bullets into the atmosphere.

But if he can open his eyes, he will find himself back in the room with the perfect Mechanix form lying on the floor. He sees the Master Emerald and runs for it. He sends out his hands to grab it...

Now if he's in the atmosphere of the World whether he entered it or not he can continue on in the cosmos. If he does so, he will fly away into bleak space, with no other planets to aim for. The color will recede as the bullets stop reaching him. Only the pulse of light through space still moves past him.

After a short while, he will see a dim green light. He goes to it. He sees the Master Emerald, glowing and sparkling a pure green. He sends out his hands to grab it...

He grabs it.

.

His arms explode with energy but he still holds on strong. His body is fluctuating with the increasing waves of energy. With a beat deep within him he pushes out an immense wave of energy. It swats the tendrils off of the Chaos Emeralds, and he then uses a pulse of their power to neutralize the Master Emerald. It shatters, and its aura of energy makes a final whip with its tendrils that shatters the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic is stunned, and suddenly the lights within the room flashed off. Sonic was left in darkness, and was then grabbed and felt space rush around him. His limbs flicked into unmoving objects as he was taken to an opening door and thrown within. The door then slams shut.

_[Warning: Disturbing graphic material ahead.]_

Steel shackles wrap around Sonic's wrist, ankles and neck.

"Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die." Mechanix clicked.

Sonic is bolted into position suddenly, and then nothing.

Silence.

A blade. It's spinning. Slowly. Louder. Then another blade, elsewhere. Approaching.

"**DIE**!"

A blade cuts through Sonic's leg. He screams in pain. Another blade cuts off his arm. "Fuuuucck!" His other leg. "Fuck you! Fuuuck youuu!" His arm. "Coward!" His blood is leaving his body, he feels it drain out of every organ. "Fuck youu... youuu coward..." A blade nicks his neck.

He sees his own body fall into bloody pieces in front of him. He pulls him arm but it moves nowhere. Then, a click. In an instant, he feels a very thin needle pierce directly that arm. Another. Another. One after another up and down his arm until there are three going down at once, then it moves even faster and eventually Sonic's entire body is pierced every which way by needles. Sonic is intact, still alive although his body is flooding with pain. Then, slowly, the needles pull out and Sonic feels his innards roll across the sliding needles. As the needles removed themselves from the wounds blood gushes out from each hole, quickly draining him of blood until he is lightheaded. Then the needles remove his brain and he slowly loses his mind piece by piece in horrifyingly painful ways.

He sees his body collapse into a pool of its own blood in front of him. "Bastard. You will never win! You can't beat me!" He suddenly feels his back against a cold metal wall and his front against another. It slowly pushes him together and within seconds he feels his bones give way, his body squishing out of and off of itself. He loses consciousness

and sees two slabs of metal pull off from each other, dropping a mangled sack of stuff that was once Sonic. "No matter how many times! I'll never give in to you!"

The cuffs on his body breaks off, and Sonic finds himself holding on to the Master Emerald intact and the Chaos Emeralds spinning around it. They then disappear in a flash into his body.

.

Sonic must then run forward through a tunnel in the wall that leads outside of within Mechanix. Sonic dashes up it and sees star-studded space ahead of him in a circle. Just as he breaks through, a machine pulls out the seven Chaos Emeralds from within him.

.

Sonic is hurtling through space, and is shot with a slow beam, then a shock beam followed by a continuous sap beam as he falls, eventually draining Sonic of all of his energy. Sonic is taken out of Super form.

Sonic gets up. He looks around him and sees the first form of Mechanix with all of the Emeralds. He looks at Mobius spinning next to them, and it spins quickly. Sonic remembered then that time slowed down so long ago, that this is the true state. He realized, "Mechanix can't make me hallucinate anymore without this! Good, now things will be easier."

Sonic looks around and finds himself on a circular platform on his stomach. Mechanix then slowly bends his back, arcing it until he mountains over himself, attacks in two phases:

.

Phase 1

- With his two arms. In the middle of each palm is a cannon which will Sonic can spindash into unless it is about to fire a beam. Spinning up the entirety of the tube will send Sonic hurtling to a weak spot on Mechanix where Sonic will deal a powerful hit that causes the wall there to fracture for a 'hit'.

- Having them both face inward with open palms, to fire charged beams at each other.

- Strike one down with a punch, causing a shockwave which will hurt Sonic (he must jump before the punch lands).

- He may strike down with the other, punching the ground continuously (Sonic must jump from side to side in rhythm with the punches).

- Slap the ground to crush Sonic underneath

- Cage Sonic under a hand's fingers, trapped, before the other hands comes in to punch. The first hand will leave just before it hits, a small window of opportunity for Sonic to jump out of the way.

- Face its fingers down, firing them into the ground and electrifying them as hazardous walls between which Sonic must move back and forth to avoid falling attacks from the hand cannon.

- Mechanix's will fire slower attacks from his eyes far away and above. They come down gradually, everything else moving faster, like an assault of glaciers.

This phase ends if he is 'hit' twice, or if sufficient time has passed.

.

Phase 2

- Mechanix will use its hand and perform quick gestures which will indicate the type of bullet that will now be fired.

- Mechanix will create hundreds of robots to onslaught Sonic.

After 8 'hits', the chest shatters leaving vulnerable a tube that moves towards his chest, with a white glow from within.

.

Sonic runs up the chest towards the tube, but the ground in front of him expands farther than he can reach. He looks around and sees that other pieces of his body are changing into a malleable form for this one technique. He speeds up, and then the hands rapidly attack the ground around him. Sonic makes it through fine and enters the tube.

As Sonic runs down the tube, there are hazards within the surfaces that he must avoid. These may be dangerous electric currents or streams of plasma, but they are all dangerous. The tube opens into a short room glowing with the light of the seven Chaos Emeralds contained in a glass chamber. Just as Sonic enters the room, a door shuts off the tube behind Sonic. A wall of fire bursts through the walls and threatens to consume Sonic. He runs and breaks through the container, and quickly transforms into Super Sonic as the flames throw him to the other wall to be crushed. Sonic manages to escape through another tube.

Floating in space, Sonic looks back at Mechanix. He doesn't change. Catching him unaware, Mechanix suddenly dashes forward and throws out an endless stream of energy attacks large and small. Occasionally, there are beams charged with the power of the Black Emerald, which are powerful enough to slow time if Sonic is near them (actually, Sonic will be in a weak Hyper mode for a few seconds to his advantage) or harm him if hit directly (even in Super form). Sonic must be constantly aware of the patterns of each bullet as he homes in on Mechanix who will also be constantly moving.

Eventually Sonic will reach Mechanix, here he must repeatedly ram into his body, tearing into the armor. Mechanix will not fire beams as much as he will frantically attack Sonic with his arms and reshape his body to ward Sonic off. At first Mechanix will recover instantly, but with each collapse the recover becomes slower and Sonic can deal damage deeper within.

Mechanix cannot do much as Sonic essentially drills a hole through him. Occasionally Mechanix will summon his energy to create a white barrier that repels Sonic far enough away to recover somewhat, but he can only do this a few times at first. Mechanix's attacks will lessen in number and strength, very slowly at first but he loses exponentially more as time goes on. Mechanix will convert different parts of his body into energy using massive explosions (which Sonic can easily dodge through). This is futile.

As Sonic cuts deep within Mechanix, he will use:

- his regenerative effort to create turrets and small robots

- as well as smaller energy barriers

- as well as landscapes out of the tunnel Sonic makes.

When Sonic reaches the glowing area, he will be suddenly repelled by a tremendously powerful black energy shockwave.

.

Back in space, Sonic will be attacked with Mechanix's deadliest attacks.

- He will fire a beam containing shock, sap and slow,

- as well as firing harmful blue blasts from his eyes.

- Additionally, if Sonic is within range of Mechanix's head, particularly as he is re-entering the digging hole, he will be followed by tiny dark tendrils. If Sonic stands still for too long, the tendrils will glow bright before Mechanix suddenly stabs outward a large group of super-sharp needles with the power of the Black Emerald (if Sonic escapes this he can use the short boost it gives him).

In the last push back through the glowing area:

- Mechanix will be constantly moving metal in Sonic's way,

- absorbing his energy from his attacks

- and reflecting them in his own energy attacks, from projectiles to piercing laser columns within the tunnel.

.

The glowing stops. Sonic enters a larger room. There is a large pulsating white light shining upward to an opening high in the wall. In flames of light within shadows is lit the figure of a hedgehog, his arms and legs trapped from view.

"What!?" Sonic gasps.

He comes closer, with every pulse more time passes as he looks into the sleeping face of his own kind. Breaking his thought are tiny strands of moving metal, again forming itself as of its own will. It slides across the man's body, turning into his Genius form. The Black Emerald! Sonic sets off forward but he is too late, a column of steel stabs upward through the chamber the light was in. At its front was the Black Emerald, pulsating eerily enough with a white light. The strands of metal are almost finished covering the hedgehog core of Mechanix. His arms are completely covered, grabbing the Black Emerald and pulling it into his own body. Sonic takes no chances.

.

Sonic must attack the hedgehog directly. With every hit, the entire superstructure of Mechanix violently shakes and tears itself apart. The room will flash with color, and the hedgehog will start screaming in pain with additional attacks. Most importantly, the regenerating metal will not recreate an earlier form of Mechanix for Sonic to beat once again.

Sonic made no mistakes. He rose into the sky and flung himself forward. A sphere of wall flashes before him, but he strikes into it once destroying it. He repeatedly flings himself forward, destroying the walls quicker and quicker until he slams into the arms. Every hit that the arms block is absorbed deeper and deeper within Mechanix. The armor cracks and falls off as more is created but in less and less amounts. The hedgehog's bones rattle as his flesh twitches and shakes from each hit. He must be hit 10 times. The last 3 hits make him cough blood.

_._

When Sonic finally breaks through the arms, he feels the Black Emerald get flicked out the side into a small alcove. Then he drops and turns, but before he can grab it, all of Mechanix shakes more than he ever has before. Sonic hears him being ripped apart, and he soon sees layers and strips of metal tear and flake off. Again he finds himself in space under the light of the sun.

Sonic feels a warm, wet thing dripping all over his head and back. He looks upwards, to see that his last hit had cut through everything, the arms, the chest armor, even the skin of the hedgehog. A stream of blood slides out from his chest and mouth. For a moment as Sonic stares at what he did to this other hedgehog, he wonders if what he's seeing is real. But his thought is cut off as all of the walls crumble into pieces, breaking up behind the man who then falls hard towards the floor. Sonic sprints forward and catches him, feeling the blood on his arms, seeing the wound he put into him up close. He holds onto him for a few seconds as all but the floor is left. Space calmly stands around them, but something kept an artificial atmosphere up. Sonic is mesmerized by what just happened, adrenaline still shooting through his body, but somehow he could gently put him down on what was left of the floor.

The man coughs out blood suddenly. His eyes move under his eyelids. He turns his head, stops. He very gradually opens his eyelids. His fingers flick, and then his hands and feet just barely wiggle. Sonic stands back and watches. The other hedgehog then very slowly pushes his hands onto the ground, groaning and gasping in pain until he is sitting straight. Wincing, he looks at Sonic.

"Why... why didn't you kill me?"

Sonic looked at him. He didn't know what to say. Was the battle over? "I-I didn't mean to hurt you. I-"

"You imbecile. _I..._ am Mechanix. I'm even still controlling this floor. I could... explode it with deadly energy..."

Sonic shook his head. "I know who you are."

Mechanix, who was grimacing, suddenly froze. "No. No, you don't! I'm Mechanix, nobody else! This is all an illusion, you damned fool!"

Sonic said, "You were a slave. Of the echidnas. The Zexakal. You were roboticized!"

Mechanix smiled. "Ha, that? No. That doesn't matter. I **chose** this."

"I knew about what they were doing to our people. I knew they were hiding the truth behind everything. I knew that. I didn't think it through. I was too stupid to think, and trusted my feelings to be right... They were secretly testing out roboticization then. I volunteered, believing I could use it against them. I thought I could hold on. They told me... I could become a god..."

Sonic shouted back, "You did it for the right reasons! It was for justice!"

Mechanix said, "Justice?" He laughed. "JUSTICE?!" He tried to laugh harder but a bolt of pain sent him coughing and clutching his wound. "Justice doesn't exist... The hedgehogs didn't deserve to be endangered. The people of this world didn't deserve having their past return to destroy them. Nikki... didn't deserve my wrath..."

"I'm the fucking devil! Me! _I_ made all of the decisions that ruined this world, my own home. I believed I was a _god_. They made me forget my past and even though I could fight back and remember myself, I didn't care to question my new self. I wanted to... I... wanted to escape... everything... especially myself. I hated this self, this body, this coward. I wanted it to die."

Sonic didn't say anything.

The man paused. "Sonic, you made me realize that I was not superior. I destroyed the world and yet it returned. The Zexakal civilization rose and fell like the tide. Even I would grow stronger only to be defeated by you. I realized... that I was only an extension of the Emeralds, especially the Black Emerald. I tried to release as much energy as possible, I was... driven to, but the armor could not handle it. It was being pounded into dust like my sense of ego that had seemed so infinite. Know this, Sonic: Nobody can return unmangled from the machine of power. It warps your mind, makes you think you want more, while eating away at you bit by bit. Until you're nothing like you were. Every wound you inflict on others cuts you deeper inside...!"

He continued, slower. "We all have our mental loops and habits, Sonic. I didn't confront myself, driven by fear. You are driven too... by vengeance..."

Sonic yelled back suddenly, "Vengeance! Is it vengeful to strike back at mad men who use unmatched power to dominate the world, to subjugate others into their desired mode of slavery!"

Sonic adds, "Fuck no, it's righteous! It's justice! It frees the lives of millions of innocent people!"

Mechanix suddenly lost strength, but forced his words out. "Seek peace, my brother, not more bloodshed! I have fought like you, trying to save the world with my incredible power... but it took control of my mind and brought the world to ruin instead! I betrayed everything I loved even when all I wanted was to protect it! I wanted to feel no emotions... To make it easy... To not make a mistake again... I'm glad-" He coughs out blood again, but this time it is dark and gelatinous. He smirks. "I'm glad I'm dying!"

Sonic was waiting for him to finish and continued. "No, you're right! Throughout history, the cause of all the world's suffering to the very worst are those people that go insane with power. They who nearly destroy the world again and again, enslaving species and ending up killing themselves in madness! It's because of them! They killed us hedgehogs off like they must have did countless others! Mech-Mechanix, you're the only hedgehog I've ever met, and it's because of those fuckers, those bastards who need to die!" At the end he's shaking his fist back at the globe of Mobius.

"No, no, no! Stop thinking like that, Sonic! It's over! The world is too small... both Old..." The hedgehog's breathing suddenly slows down, and he falls onto his back. "New Mobius... no more violence... Sonic... don't be fooled... Everything... your... mind..."

Sonic was looking at Mobius, torn apart by what Mechanix had done. But it wasn't Mechanix who did it anymore. Sonic could not blame Mechanix the hedgehog. "It was never your fault. It never could have been. I know what it's like, living under a tyrant. But violence is necessary! How could we defend ourselves if we let our aggressors continue to exist? With every win, there is more peace, until they die altogether."

"You killed Robotnik. You did it when I could never conceive of doing it. I never wanted to do that... but it was selfish, because he never stopped his terrorizing attacks, no matter what! You, like all roboticized minions, were freed and no longer serve your master without thinking, even if the master is yourself. They used you to kill. They used you underground. They used you during the Chaos Emerald war. They used you to save them even when their world has long since died."

"I'm not blaming the people. I'm blaming the ones in control. Zaga tried to make you a tool for good, but the Elders used you as a weapon. It must be the Elders. It must be their fault, all of this! It all makes sense now. They're the final enemy. The Robotniks of Old Mobius... I just need the Black Emerald... no matter how strong they are, I'll defeat them. I'll avenge you, ancestor, I'll avenge our entire species! I'll cleave the heads off those fucking monsters, and finally create the peace and freedom we've always dreamed of!"

"Sonic..." the man calls out weakly.

Sonic turns and comes closer. He looks at him with sympathy and admiration. He smiles with a determined face. He waits on whatever he'll say, so he can ask him everything Sonic never knew about his people...

"Sonic..." he gasps. Sonic realizes how slow he's breathing.

Sonic forgets everything else. His heart pounds and he feels a lump in his throat. He feels something very cold... something very cold, very permanent, coming. What was it? Sonic didn't even try to wonder. But it was certainly coming. He drops to his knees and grabs his hand. It is cold. "No... no, don't... don't die! Please don't die, I thought-I-I don't know your name! You're not-"

"Sonic!... Your eyes... are... closed ...…"

Mechanix dies with a final breath. Sonic suddenly feels a snapping sensation in his mind that radiates through his body in an instant. The floor falls apart beneath them as if it was never really attached together. Sonic finds himself falling back to Earth with nothing to stand on. He instinctively grabs the hedgehog's limp body. He turns around suddenly to see the Black Emerald missing, but he decides it's not important. He forgets about the entire battle and every confrontation with Mechanix. He forgets about the Elders and Robotnik and Tails and everything. He concentrates on keeping the body safe.

As he slows his re-entry back onto Mobius, he looks into the man's eyes. They are open, but they do not see. He looks at the man's face and admired every detail of it, so alien and unrecognizable to him, and yet so distinctly, uncannily familiar. He feels his throat throb, and a single fact dropped into his awareness. Surrounded by fire, this thought:

"He's dead."

He suddenly remembers the vision of his mother gliding away from his hands. He did not notice at the time, so overwrought with emotion, but she had a different hue, a different face from what little he remembered of his real mother. He then remembered his own hands, that they were not his hands.

It was... Mechanix. The hedgehog who was called Mechanix.

"I don't know his name." Sonic said.

Sonic's heart feels like it's exploding. Reason makes no sense to him. There is only endless pain. He looks deep into the man's eyes, looking for anything that's there, and he sees himself. Sonic sees his own eyes. They stare back at him, burning alive.

"He's dead."


	9. Sonic Ballistic, Part 8

Part 8

_From now on, Sonic can become Super Sonic, or 'Super form', _whenever_ he wants. As a reminder, in Sonic Ballistic, Super Sonic can detransform at will and can start flying at any time. He is not invulnerable to attacks more powerful than the 7 Chaos Emeralds. Fortunately, the Master Emerald makes him recover Power Rings twice as fast._

Sonic rubbed his eyes. "Robotnik. Mechanix. Now I have to fight these elders... He's right. It doesn't end... There's always another bad guy to beat... What am I doing? When does it end? Why can't I stop myself...?"

He looks away from the ground. His eyes drift over the landscape. He can see nothing but flat ground, bare and barren. There are massive storm clouds rolling across an area far away, the small line between ground and sky filled with dark haze.

"I need to go... I didn't stop Mechanix earlier. I always let them go. I didn't stop Robotnik even earlier... I never... stop them as soon as possible. I need to... stop them..."

Sonic walked away. He stopped. "Thousands of cities arose worldwide... Were there even any people? If that really happened... and they're so violent... no, I can-I need... to stop them. I need to get... the Black Emerald back. Need to find it..."

He paused. Stopped. No thoughts.

"Why am I here?" Sonic asked himself.

He looked around. He felt someone watching him.

"I need..."

.

**Mobius Mayhem** [Act 1] (8/37)

Sonic might want to transform Super to help him speedily travel across the flat, destroyed land. After a short while he will come to a great valley that stretches to the horizon sitting before him, filled with water and rocks at the bottom. It takes a moment to fly over it. He continues on, crossing a few rivers and fields with some patches of living grass before reaching the foothills of a mountain range.

Shrubs and flowers pass by before Sonic meets a variety of trees on his curvy way towards the mountains. After clearing a few forests he will come to a final dip before the climb, where the ground has been drowned under a flood. Trees and boulders lie in piles down the slope. After passing the muddy ground he will effortlessly run up the steep cliffs and slopes, reaching the short summit within seconds.

He looks around. He sees the storm system behind him. He tries to spot a skyscraper, tower, some kind of glow in the atmosphere, but there is nothing but rock, plants and water.. Neither Old Mobian nor New Mobian constructions marked any of the area. Yet it was not serene. The skies were darkened, malevolent. There was a lake, Sonic noticed, but its surface was rippled. Sonic figured there must be a shack somewhere near it.

He followed the ridge, leaping off a several hundred foot drop and gliding through the sky over the smaller mountain tops. He landed in a clearing on a valley between tall trees, running between them shortly before coming across the lake shore.

The waves were white-capped, tossing roughly into each other. A strong wind was blowing, but Sonic kept his course. He went straight, bursting through each large wave as he flew across its surface. His wake exploded into foam behind him. He noticed a dry-docked speed boat and a nearby truck, and headed towards it.

.

Upon reaching it, he exited Super mode and looked around.

"Oh, it's Sonic!" a woman called from within the truck. She jumped out, a 20-something fox wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

"Sonic?" A man called. It was a coyote, also 20-something, wearing shorts, no shirt, and a cap. He walked from behind the other side of the boat. "Oh, it _is_ Sonic."

"Hey," Sonic replied.

"Where have you been? Nobody could find you. So much has happened." the fox asked. "Robotnik was just going crazy with all of these worldwide attacks just so shortly ago, and then, like, randomly cities like, literally, came out of the ground, _everywhere_. And then! Then, people! These echidnas, which are supposed to be extinct, just like came out, saw us, and freaked out, and"

The coyote continued. "For only a few hours it was peaceful. I think a few people tried to communicate to them because they knew their dead language. You know academic types. Then the lasers came from space. I mean, that was the biggest what the fuck besides the zombie civilization. Just like, 'oh hey gigantic lasers from space that's pretty cool" and then, "PSHZOW! Oh no, not the everything!" It destroyed a lot of our cities, and a lot of theirs. Nobody knew what was going on, man. It was pretty radical, I will admit."

"I don't think even the echidnas knew what to do, at first," added the fox.

"Both sides thought the other attacked them. So of course now there's a war between all of us and them who just came out of nowhere. It's so large, enemy nations of what we're now calling 'New Mobius' have joined together to fight the single massive zombie empire of 'Old Mobius'."

"Were they alive underneath us for all this time? That's creepy, man. All of my childhood moments are ruined because there were always an entire civilization of sleeping undead under me in each and every one."

Sonic, having let them talk, suddenly spoke up. "A lot of things happened. Robotnik unearthed one of their most powerful machines, but he couldn't control hi- – it. Its intention was to resurrect Old Mobius, and was given godly powers to do so. I... couldn't stop him... but I defeated him..."

The two looked back at Sonic quietly, who then looked down and away.

"You've done some heroic things, Sonic, but the scale of this..." the coyote looked around.

"It's like time was split apart, man, two parallel worlds that eventually crashed into each other."

"Hey, I completely forgot. My name is Erin." the coyote said.

"I'm Salana." the fox added.

The wind howled. The waves crashed.

"You look pretty tired, which makes sense because you're in the middle of nowhere right now and it's been weeks since anyone last saw you," Erin commented. Sonic froze. "You don't know where you are, do you?" Erin asked.

Sonic looked up at him. "No. ...weeks? It couldn't have been..." He held his hand to his head. He remembered everything from his fight with Mechanix. He was in Hyper mode most of the time, he thought. But then there were the hallucinations... How much of that fight was even real...?

Erin looked at Salana. She glanced at him, then said, "This might sound creepy, but you should drive with us for a little bit. You can check our truck for weapons, there will be none, I promise."

Erin stared at Salana. He then says, "Yeah, that was pretty creepy." He turns to Sonic, "We can help you out." Salana snickers. "We'll tell you what we know while you get your head together. You can trust us." Sonic nods sleepily, his body shaking and his unfocused eyes. He lost track of what they were saying multiple times. Salana replied, "Okay. Let's just hook the boat back up, Erin, and head to the hospital in Pheaston."

"Okay," Erin acknowledged as Sonic opened the back door of the truck, climbed in, and rested his head back.

I haven't had a time to think, Sonic thought. Weeks?! That couldn't have happened. Ohh, that battle with Mechanix took so long... and now I have to stop the people that created him. Oh man, what if he wasn't the only one...?! No, no, even so I can win now. I just have to destroy them at once, immediately. I can't hesitate anymore. I fucked up so badly... Zaga said they took over Mechanix, those elders. They must still be around..."

Salana opens the passenger door, enters, sits and slams it shut. Erin then enters, turns the ignition and starts driving. Salana says, "Knowing you, Sonic, you'll probably want to just find the root cause, go directly to it and destroy it. But since you've been out of the loop let me explain what's happened, before you do anything too rash."

"Basically, the feeling amongst every living thing on this planet is that it's the end of the world. Like with deus ex machina our somewhat boring, slowly progressing lives were irreversibly changed for the worst. The war started slowly as tiny skirmishes between the two peoples, but within days both sides had prepared their armies and set them against each other. The Old Mobians... they have better technology. Their warriors are brutal, strong, and talented. Ours are just trained well. It got bloody. Then governments started forcing conscription, curtailed rights, forced industries to work for them. We knew some of the people who made peaceful contact. They were protesting, with hands united, but they were arrested and they won't let them out!"

Erin followed up. "We knew what was going to happen. Many people felt the war was unnecessary, and soon they'll realize they have no control over their own military. Resources will drain, tensions will crack, revolution will spring forth."

"Hell yeah! Life isn't boring anymore!" Salana cheered.

"She's being sarcastic," Erin comments, and continued. "But every man who fights the state will be shot down. Nobody was free to criticize, why would they be free to make a real change? The state has the monopoly on violence; it will win when it comes to violence. From what we've heard something similar is happening in Old Mobius, too. Either that or one of the two sides uses a weapon that kills hundreds of thousands of people. We escaped, hoping to ride out the storm, avoid any nukes. But, then there's the second part."

He glimpsed at Sonic in the rearview mirror. "The environment is becoming violent, too. It may be because of the change in currents in the air, ocean or ground, I don't know. But there's been so many storms appearing everywhere, getting larger and stronger each time. There's been a lot of earthquakes. Volcanos erupting. Some areas are flooded, others suffer drought. There's this horrible infectious plague with a high mortality rate, but luckily it's on the other side of the globe. Fucking, for now."

Salana was looking out the window with a melancholy expression. "It's depressing. The world is falling apart and the only thing our civilizations can do is to fight each other. Nobody wants to live to their fullest, they were so scared of change that they got traumatized when it actually happened! They want each other to die even though most of us have realized it's all over! They probably know that, and want to exploit the world to its maximum before the final hour has struck!"

Sonic also looked out the window, staring at the scenery which moved itself.

Erin looked back at Sonic again. "Sonic, the world is in chaos now. Everyone is scared. Nothing makes sense anymore. Some people respected you, some people disliked you, but now everyone is praying for you to save them. But this is beyond individual people now. It's all of us."

Sonic looked at Erin.

Erin looked at Sonic in the eyes through the mirror, then back at the road. "You've stopped Robotnik from destroying the world, but can you really stop the world from destroying itself? Even if all the bad guys are gone, what stops a good guy from going bad? People are scared of each other, they fight and steal from each other, they oppress and massacre each other because they don't _think_ about a person who has the same awareness of living second-to-second for years in largely the same type of habitat... they don't _want to understand_ that they have differences, that they make mistakes, that they have dreams, friends and families! They aren't _aware at all_ of anything besides themselves, they have never injected their consciousness into a model of another thing..."

Salana jumped in suddenly, "Yep. There's no such thing as 'good' or 'bad'. You can't convert the information flood that is life with a binary value system. Or with any abstraction, unless it could possibly be more detailed than life itself..."

Erin replied, "Yeah, that, too. Context is too deep to be visualized as a single continuum of subjective value. What bothers me is that nearly everyone of both civilizations seem to have a very limited awareness of things, like: hands, emotions, body needs, mind wants, internalized rules."

Sonic said something. "Be that as it may, I still must do what I can no matter what... I'm responsible... for all of this. But I know the leaders of the echidnas, they are the ones that created Mechanix. They're the ones that wanted this to happen. They're the ones that enslaved Mechanix..." Salana glances at Erin. "If I can stop them, then the leaders of New Mobius will have no reason to fight either."

Erin suppresses a chuckle and responds seriously, "Actually, that might work. You know, this might sound strange, but Tails is the commander of the... New Mobian Army. He'd listen to you, if anybody..."

"Yeah, I know." Sonic looked out the window, seeing a small town come into view. "Where is their capital city? That's probably where they are."

Salana answered, "Oh, I don't even know. There were like hundreds of huge cities that appeared, a few metropolises even."

Erin added, "Actually, I remember something I overheard before we met, Salana. I was in this hostel and there was this older man who said he saw this one city whose buildings covered the horizon for as far as he could see, and they got taller and taller towards the center up to this incredibly tall supertower with a large structure at its peak above the clouds, shaped almost like a ball. He called it a megacity. So... that's probably it."

Salana remarked, "Above the clouds? What the hell! (a) That entire thing was underground and (b) it was made in a time so long ago our history books don't cover it! Come to think of it, our geology really sucks. You know, like all the ruins everywhere. Why the heck didn't we study those more?"

The truck turns into a spot and Erin turns off the engine. "We're staying here for now, got to get supplies and junk." They all exit the car. Erin goes to Sonic and holds out his hand. Sonic looks at it, and shakes it. "There's no way we could actually help you save the world, but you can stay with us if you want. We'll find you food and somewhere to sleep."

"No, I can't waste any more time. I need to find that city," Sonic responded.

Salana pushed in her brows. She held out her hand and Sonic shook it. "Look after yourself, man."

Sonic made a small laugh. "I had to fight a god. I'll be fine."

.

He waved as he ran on. The town ended rather quickly. Sonic was running on an empty road, lined with mostly broken guardrails and street lamps in and out of the trees and hills. The sun was slowly setting. He transformed into Super, dashing around the hairpin curves and through the saddles. He looked overhead to see plumes of smoke filling the burning sky. As the terrain flattened out he came to a wildfire, blazing a huge section of forest into ash and embers blowing in strong winds.

He entered it, running unaffected through the multiple walls of fire up and down hills covered with ash. He entered a clearing, seeing a house burning but still standing. He breaks in through a door that leads to the basement. He runs across it to the stairs, across the first and second floor, every floor being filled with objects but no people. He exits it, moving on. He'll come to a single floor house but it also has no one in it. He moves on, eventually reaching an area where everything was already burnt down.

As he ran across it, he noticed a glow from over a hill. He ran onto it to see a tornado made of fire. Standing before it was a tabby stretching his hands into the air. He screamed, "Yes! This is it!"

He turned around, staring at Sonic with a huge smile. "It's the end! It's the end of everything! Ahahaha!"

.

Sonic moved on, eventually escaping the wildfire as he reaches an arid area. In front of them spanning to the horizon is a span of scarce trees and shrubs. The sun is right over the horizon. He runs through it and the hills that lead to a flat desert of dirt and rocks. The light from the sun is disappearing. Sonic's displacement of air causes dust to ploof into vortices behind him. Distant mountains move slowly, without a cloud in the sky. As the sun's light disappears completely, the sky opens up its view of the millions of stars above. The moon, rising, covers the world with a soft, cool light.

Vegetation slowly springs up beneath him as he comes close to a passing river. He jumps off the banks into the flat river. He flies down it, past the many areas covered with trees and those without them. After a short while, the river breaks apart as it approaches the distant ocean. It comes closer and closer as the trees get less and less, and then, Sonic reaches the coast.

He stops on the beach.

.

[Act 2]

Sonic looks out at the wide, blue ocean. The blue sky touches it at a line and then expands forever into darker space above. Sonic walks towards the waves, lapping at the sand with the sound of water rolling on itself. He feels and smells the salt in the air. There is a slight breeze. He looks at his hand for a moment, and takes off a glove. His shoes fluff through the surfaceless surface, up to the line showing the darker, damper, harder ground. A small wave crests and crashes, a sheet of clear sea rushing forward up the hill, fighting gravity, trying to bite the earth and all upon it. Sonic looks readily at the wave, but does not move, seeing it come close but not touch his red shoes. Then, quickly, he bends and dips his fingers into the thin layer, and it is cold. Standing straight, he feels the brine soak into his skin as the small water falls back to its mother, leaving behind white lines of foam that jiggle in the passing air.

"Even as the world ends, you keep on pushing, just gotta keep on pushing," Sonic said to himself.

.

He backstepped a few, and then in a burst of speed, propelled himself forward. His feet lands on the water, but it is hard underneath, like cement. Within seconds, the shoreline behind him is receding into the omnipresent horizon as he runs to the opposite direction.

For a while, as Sonic runs on the ocean, Sonic needs to do nothing but continue running. There are no curves, no large changes in elevation, no hazards, nor is there any correct direction. He just keeps on running, the blur blur on the deep blue under the big blue.

After several minutes, Sonic notices a change in color in the ocean ahead of him, becoming lighter as he comes to a small island breaching the massive depths. He runs over the island's surface, covered by a few trees with a few birds that watch him pass back onto the ocean. He occasionally comes to these islands, some larger than others, with more rocks, flora or fauna than others. They all pass under his feet within a few seconds if that.

Clouds have appeared, fluffy, small, with flat bottoms a textural reflection of the flat sea reflecting the flat white floating above them. Sonic runs through these places of water, akin to forests with large, massive trees, except with no trunks nor roots and only a large condensed mass of white leaves. The shadows, at least, reminds Sonic of jungles he navigated in the past.

But the memory came and went just as Sonic comes and goes over areas that cannot be defined by landmark or shape. He does not try to suppress these thoughts nor did he try to think about not suppressing these thoughts. They just did not appear that often, with any other thoughts even. He only runs. He seems to forget about where he is going, if he was ever going somewhere at all, and why he is going, if there ever was a reason to begin with. He forgets that there is water underneath him and that there are things, such as people. He forgets that his legs, constantly moving, are being consciously moved. He forgets that his legs are his legs. He forgets that his body exists, or that he even has a body. He forgets that he even forgets, that he even has an anything. He forgets that he is. He only runs.

But he is not at ease. Even as he is like he is, he feels a pull from something. He feels a destination, a thing that must be completed. He does not feel incomplete, but in all his lack of feeling he still feels a single thing, which encompasses everything and beckons to everything to come forth to it, whatever it is. He has always felt this, but now that he feels nothing else, he suddenly wonders if he is closer to it now than he has been before. In an instant, he realizes he is running on water in the middle of the ocean to find the capital city of Old Mobius so as to defeat the leaders of the Zexakal and finally bring peace to Mobius once and for all.

Then, he sees a larger island ahead. It is taller than the others, and he must run up a short vertical cliff to reach its summit. There, he sees a shack beyond a grove of palm trees. He passes through it, seeing gardens of vegetables and grain and other plants with a well on a lower hill.

.

He comes to the door, and knocks on it. Sonic feels his legs still running at full speed, despite being still. He turns and looks around at the view, seeing slightly more ocean than he could at sea level. He then hears the door handle rotate and turns, seeing the face of an older fox with long whiskers and fur wearing a modest shirt and pants made from hemp.

"Sonic. Do come in," he offers, opening the door wider.

Sonic comes in. He makes quick glances around the wooden architecture, simply but soundly built. He notices a very large collection of books, as well as a rectangular desk with marked papers sprawled all over. The fox walks over to another table, circular, by an open window. He gestures for Sonic to sit and then moves on to the kitchen.

Sonic sits. "Everyone on this planet thought that nothing seriously bad would ever happen to them. They thought that anything which could destroy this entire world would be easily stopped by you. Not a single person expected that the world might not be saved someday. Not a single person expected that the entire world would so suddenly be radically changed, perhaps to the brink of total destruction, before their very eyes," the fox says. "Life before is but a dream now. And even the life now feels like a dream. A world forgotten by all but the most intellectual of people has risen from its grave, and like an envious specter seeks to put the living where it once was. Life, death, old, new, all are now meaningless. Reality itself... is made unreal. The gods laugh at us."

Sonic was looking out the window, but he turns and faces the fox who brings in two glasses of a slightly colored liquid. He hands one to him and sits down with his own. Sonic asks, "How would you know what happened, way out here?" He takes a sip of the stuff. It's light and sweet.

The fox pointed behind Sonic, who turned to see exposed radio equipment connected to a microphone and speaker. "I originally used it only for weather reports, but the news of your exploits has considerably interested me. And of course, you're our planet's hero! Saving us all from the clutches of Robotnik and his minions. I'm just one of many, in that respect."

Sonic looked down into the glass absently. Noticing he was staring at his reflection, he grabs it and takes another drink.

"The world needs you, Sonic. It needs you to save it again. Again and again. I've heard reports about the war that's going on, on the east continent. It's not good. Really, all they can do is make time for you to go and do something to stop it all, to save... us all."

Sonic still looked down.

"The world needs you so much, but nobody is thinking what this is doing to you."

Sonic looked up. The fox looked him in the eyes.

"You were a young teenager when you started fighting Robotnik, right? Now you're a young adult. You used to know unbridled freedom and speed. Now you only know combat. And bloodshed. And things I can't even imagine."

Sonic did not respond.

"...time, multiplied by experience, is personality. Your memories are alive in every aspect of sensation and meaning... except that they do not change. You can imagine them differently but they are always there. Your body changes. You lose energy. You gain wounds. You get more, and more memories. You age. But the memories remain. The memories of what you've done, whatever you've done, take up that segment of your life which exists in the present as the segment of your memories. And it's always there, influencing your perceptions, your decisions..."

"And you will never know anything different. It's always normal. It can be filled with struggle, with pain, with hate... and it's always normal."

Sonic gets up and walks to the door.

"Wait, Sonic! I just- I just want you to be careful! I just want you to think on a wider scale..."

Sonic continues walking. He opens the door. The fox rushes to it and calls out, "There's an enormous tempest to the east! Sonic! You're being reckless with yourself, Sonic!"

Sonic doesn't hear him. He is already running on the ocean again. He keeps himself from thinking about what the man said. He stops any thoughts into who he was, why he cared. He tries to stop thinking, but he can only stop thoughts. They start to die down. He soon returns to silence except from the rapid splashes of water bursting behind him. An uneasy silence. It is tense. There is a certain energy in the air that could not be placed, which seems to get denser the more Sonic put his mind on it.

.

He then notices, far ahead, a darkness. It is very wide and seems to come out of the ocean into the sky. It is massive. As Sonic approaches, the magnitude of its immensity seems to increase exponentially. The clouds are spinning at almost the same speed as Sonic is running; the span of a hundred small islands in a matter of minutes. Below it is like a wall of rain, blown almost parallel to the ocean. The waves below Sonic pick up, growing larger and larger until within seconds they are several stories tall.

Sonic might want to transform into Super form at this point, as any drop in speed will make Sonic fall victim to the forces of nature and quickly slip into the ocean, in which he cannot swim and will not survive the fall to the bottom. He must climb up tremendous waves, breaking through the crest to the top before they smash him down into the deadly water. Riding down their backsides, he might have a few smaller waves which he could possibly jump over before facing another behemoth. He enters the storm. The clouds are lost in the darkness, their violent rapidity briefly revealed in flashes of lightning yet veiled by the torrent coming down. At times, Sonic struggles against the wind, desperate to stay moving, and at other times he can simply jump and be carried away.

The screaming of the wind becomes fiercer as Sonic approaches the center. He then sees in the lightning long columns that bridge the sky and the sea. There are at first a few of them in the distance, but soon they are everywhere. Their sounds are sinister and deep, the sounds of winds ripping water out of the ocean into the sky. Even the waves flatten, nearly each and every one on a path into one of the hundreds of waterspouts. The winds only increase, bending even these in wild contortions in the air. Sonic makes his way past as fast as he can, almost sucked into several deafeningly close ones.

They soon become distant sounds, the waves and wind die down, and sunlight shines forth through a massive hole in the powerful storm. Sonic spots an island, all of its trees uprooted, and goes to make a short rest there.

He looks above. The cloud which seems to cover everything but the hole of blue sky is yet moving swiftly. He sees the sun, and faces away from it. He looks at the horizon, and for once he sees it interrupted by a shape concealed in the darkness of the storm.

Sonic is knocked over. He falls softly onto the white sand but feels each grain vibrate against him. His body shakes. He wonders if it's the storm, and when he looks back up he sees the wall suddenly much closer. With the ground still shaking, he heads off again, away from the sun.

Escaping the waterspouts yet again, Sonic sees land peal out before him. He soon notices that he can see more and more of the ground as well as the water around him. He looks behind to see that he is running on a massive wave. He runs a little faster to see the front of the water drop off suddenly, and the ocean below seemingly almost sucked into the gargantuan wall of water. He keeps pace as the tsunami rolls over the beach, the dunes and the forests, the water surging over everything, until that beneath him just breaks apart into crashing wake. He jumps at this moment, his feet touching land once more.

He keeps on running, and the hurricane above soon gives way to blue sky once again. After a short while, Sonic escapes both disasters, and stops.

He looks back. The storm and ocean are barely visible. He looks around. There are groups of trees and hills and rocks, but again, there are no towns. There are no buildings.

For a moment, Sonic wondered if he ran in a circle.

.

[Act 3]

Continuing onward, Sonic runs over the hills until he sees a deep chasm scarring the surface with barren, burnt land around it. The cut is clean and smooth, although in places rocks fell out due to lack of support. At his speed, Sonic simply jumped over it.

After a short while, the plant life becomes smaller and less in number as the air becomes chillier. The ground is covered with not much more than short grasses and moss. The tundra is bordered by a small mountain range which very slowly glides in and out of view as Sonic runs past. The elevation decreases, the air warms up and the ground flattens out. The grasses are even shorter, carrying on to the horizon. Sonic sees a few yurts on the steppe but does not stop by. He continues on for a few minutes.

Before him is a very large mountain range, the peaks of which ascend through a layer of clouds. Soon he finds himself climbing the hills, then the lower mountains. He rides the ridge until he finds a pass between the giants of rock with their steep slopes. The pass seems like someone cut through the mountains, leaving bare the layers of stone on the sides. Exiting the other side, he is suddenly surrounded by tall pine trees and brush. There is a wide cloud blanketing the sky. He rockets off cliff ledges onto slopes holding more coniferous trees when suddenly a small group of three echidnas block his path.

.

One holds a bow with an arrow already in place, and quickly aims at Sonic. The others have spears.

"Spikehead! Where's your master?!" one with a spear said. He had more markings on his body than the others. He wore a bulletproof vest.

"I am my own master," Sonic replied curtly.

"You're one of the New Worlders, huh? You guys don't have any respect for your betters. We were here first. Then you shoot a bunch of our cities with your death blasts. We wouldn't kill you all if you surrendered, you know."

"How do you know those beams came from us? Didn't they come from space?" Sonic asked.

"From the sky? The sky is the part of the land, too. Of course it was you. You attacked our cities right after!" The others noted their agreement.

Sonic thought, if I told them that it was Mechanix, they wouldn't believe me.

"I'm not one of them. Let me be!" Sonic demanded.

"Liar! You'll just run away so you can join your people's army to kill us like you've been doing! You think I'm stupid because I'm from an older time? Fuck you. Fuck you! I hate you New Worlders, and I especially hate you spikeheads! I'm going to fucking kill you. Come on, guys."

.

The two with spears rush at Sonic, while the archer fires his arrow. Sonic jumps over this easily. All of them attack at once, and they turn around quickly when Sonic jumps over their heads. To hit one, Sonic just needs to charge a spin dash. One hit sends one flying, to slowly get up with a second wind, but two hits knocks one out completely. Alternatively, Sonic can go Super and simply bump into them, defeating them instantly.

After the scuffle, Sonic moves forward. He eventually escapes the forest and finds himself on yet another long plain. The clouds darken and he sees rain ahead. Within a minute he's suddenly drenched by very heavy rainfall. He ears a rushing sound nearby and sees a wave of water washing over the lowlands. As he gets closer he sees trees floating on the floodwater as it rushes forward. He jumps onto its surface, avoiding the floating hazards as he moves upstream. He soon comes to another mountain range, however there is a valley between sides with which the flooding river descends from.

He climbs up this river in the heavy rain, avoiding the boulders that are dislodged and sent hurtling downhill. He occasionally comes to a dry ledge which he can climb only to re-enter the river. Soon enough he reaches a curve that puts him out of the way of the flooding near the top of the mountain. He comes to a flat area and finds a few wooden cabins in a clearing. He is spotted by a dog with a gun who whips around to aim as Sonic runs behind him.

.

"Hey," he says, making the dog jump.

He put down his gun. "Oh, it's you, Sonic. I thought you was an echidna for a secon', 'bout t'shoot you."

"I'm glad you didn't," Sonic replied, then looked around. A few people see him from inside and around the houses and came to him. There are only four others.

"Sonic! Where were you all this time?!" a younger pup asked.

"God told us this day would come, boy. Not even Sonic could have stopped it," an older rabbit said.

"Why're ya all the way out hya, Sonny? We don' get much o'dem ropeheads but we hold 'em off just fine wit' da five o'us," the dog said.

A female raccoon holding a musket spits on the ground. "Boy howdy, we've neva had trouble like this in owa who' lives. And we ain't even nea' the front."

Sonic looks to her and asks "The front? Where is that from here?"

She replies, "Way out Wes', b'chu' dun wanna go der, it ain't good. My sista wuz der," she turned to the other female raccoon behind her, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.

"The echidna army is incredible. They attacked us with thousands of robots, small and large... with soldiers who could cast magic. They had these super-warriors who would slaughter hundreds of men at a time... and they'd pillage houses and stores and kidnap people, some even killing them on the street... ohh... What they did to us... was nothing, even, compared to other cities..." She looks to the ground, folding her arms tight against her chest.

Sonic looks at her intently. "Do you know where their capital is?"

She looks back at him. "No... not exactly. It's deep within their empire, which grows bigger with every one of our towns they take over. We don't really know... we lost contact with everyone in there. We did all we could just to hold them back... we're doing all we can even out here..."

"Sonic," the rabbit suddenly calls out. He turns to him.

"You aren't the same. What happened, wherever you were? It's related to all of this, isn't it?"

Sonic remembers watching helplessly as Old Mobius exploded through the crust of the earth, as Mechanix's lasers scraped its surface.

"I messed up. I really messed up," Sonic began. Everyone looked at him.

"I was too carefree. I didn't think anything would happen."

He thinks about destroying Mechanix back in his Seal, and holding Robotnik to the wall with his hands. He thinks about the old Mobius, about the beautiful skies and landscapes, about Tails running behind him and people smiling and waving at him as he ran by. He thinks, I thought it was a game...

Then his expression froze as he remembers Robotnik holding a gun to his head. He realizes, then, at that moment, he could have died and the Death Egg would have crashed. Robotnik would have survived. Mechanix might still kill him, but nothing could stop him from destroying the entire planet. He regains his composure, hearing, "...Sonic?"

He looked at the boy. The dog said, "D'ya hear what I said, boy! It ain't'cho' fault dat dose fuckin' 'kidnas want ta kill us all! Yo da only one who can stop dem, Sonic! Ya gotta keep on fightin'!"

Sonic looked up, and focused on his face. He expressed solid determination. "You're right. I'm the only one that can defeat them. I can do it. I know... I know I can."

The rabbit said, "God made this happen. He brought the demons of hell onto earth to test our faith in Him. We can do nothing but pray for your victory, Sonic, that you may be the weapon of God against evil."

"Amen," said the dog.

For once, the crushing silence within Sonic's head, the long dead blankness he had after the fight with Mechanix, felt lifted. He feels, for once, that things aren't in question, that he is doing his duty. He feels an upswelling of pride, being the hero, no, the protector of Mobius. They're right, he thinks. Only I can do it.

Sonic walks between the raccoons. "Then there's no time to waste! Tell me, where is their empire? I will go and smash it!"

The dog, pup and raccoons cheers. The rabbit smiles. The musket-wielding raccoon says, "Go East. Go where the sky is always bright."

"Thanks," Sonic says, and speeds off.

.

He goes down the other side of the mountain, bare of trees. He hops down the rocks until the ground again levels out into dirt and brush. Grass reappears in patches as his feet passes by. Trees soon pop up in small numbers into larger groups until he finds a paved road cutting through farmland. He runs on it, very rarely passing a car which honks, seeing him. Large fields of produce and grain are watered by long bridge-like machines on wheels rotating around a pivot. They disappear behind a block of trees as Sonic rushes through a grove. Ponds and streams pass by, and the trees disappear as Sonic immediately finds himself again on a coastline. He stands before a large causeway that comes to a suspended bridge spanning the gap to the other side of the bay, where he can see a small town.

.

[Act 4]

He crosses the bridge. He is raised into the sky, far above the lapping waves below. He passes by steel cords holding the road between two massive towers stabbing out of the water. In large caternary curves the tubes droop, before tautly leading into a cement block. He soon comes down to the town. The road has 3 lanes going both ways next to a meridian, with small single-story businesses crowding filled parking lots. Lines of people are standing in the stores and leading out into the heat, some noticing Sonic and waving as he passes by.

.

A fireball blasts through the sky in front of him. He hears screams and sees a tipped-over tanker spinning on the asphalt behind a single echidna. Sonic stands before him as more come running around the fire.

"Oh look. Another one," he says. He wore a tightly fitting chestplate and thin grieves.

"That wasn't necessary," Sonic says.

"I'll do what I want with your inferior shit. We already won this war from the start. Only time remains," he says.

Sonic starts, "It isn't over yet, punk! I'll-"

The other echidnas start hollering back. "You filthy mold!" "You corpse-smell!" "Kill yourself!" "Don't insult our leader!"

The leader, it seems, raises his hands and they quiet. He speaks, "Hopefully _this_ town will learn from your death."

.

- He can attack from far away with energy pulses he can shoot from his arms.

- He can fire them scatter-shot or charge an explosive ball.

- Up close, he has strong and swift attacks.

The other echidnas shout when he is hit, and after 4 hits he falls. Immediately after, all of the rest will attack at once.

- Some have bows and arrows,

- others spears,

- but most only come with their fists.

.

After defeating them, Sonic hears cheers from the people of the town who were watching. He runs on, avoiding the tanker by jumping over the highway into the forest around it. He runs through it, only to find it getting darker and damper. Fungi appear everywhere, and soon he finds trees held under large pools of muddy water. Bugs incessantly fill the air, the buzzing constant under occasional distant bird calls and the ribbits of the frogs.

.

The dense canopy opens up suddenly, with a clear pond reflecting the sky, turning to evening. Sonic suddenly feels a strange sensation. He looks around into the dark caverns of the swamp trees, seeing lightning bugs flash intermittently. He feels an itch on his leg, and then a small pain. He instinctively slaps it, and holds his leg up, seeing a small red dot and fluid swelling around it. He looked in his hand and sees the smashed, gooey remains of a mosquito. He wipes it on a tree trunk and starts moving his legs again.

He runs on the surface of the pond, and suddenly the sky rips away like a blanket under a table. The water disappears, and Sonic is only running on the feet of his reflection. He looks down at himself, and jumps. Hitting himself, he spindashes, for the world to spin around himself. He jumps away suddenly the gravity changes. He lands on a ceiling that appeared on the sky. He looks down at himself standing on a floor beneath the water. Suddenly they come close to each other, separated by a plane of water. They send out their right hand to touch each other, but when they both touch the water it suddenly vibrates in larger and larger waves before suddenly exploding into a spinning field of droplets. He sees reflections of himself in every drop, and the reflections of his reflections. He pokes his own shoulder, and his shoulder is poked. He rests his hand on the reflection's shoulder, and a hand rests on his shoulder. Yet, he doesn't feel warmth from the hand. Instead, it feels cool, almost cold, and it has no weight. He looks into his own eyes, and they look away from his.

"Why... why are you like this?" Sonic asks.

Suddenly, Sonic finds himself somewhere else. He is wet, and he's holding his hand into the pond. He suddenly removes it and backs away. He looks at himself. Incredulous, shaken, he slowly decides to quickly shake the water off. He looks around. He can't tell where he was going, and where he needs to go. He looks above but the sun is below the top of the trees. He turns around, seeing the shadows fall ahead of him, and he runs in that direction.

.

He eventually exits the swamp. He finds himself in a wide field of cut crops, split by asphalt. He runs to and on the road, following the power lines. He runs for a long time, occasionally passing smaller homes and a few farmer's markets, before seeing a plume of smoke in the distance. Gunshots ring through the air, followed by crashes and booms.

The trees thin out, giving way to a small town with wooden and brick buildings tightly knit between small roads. He is immediately met by the cries of men and women and children. He quickly turns and sprints down an alley as a crowd runs down a street. Energy pulses are flung forward, tearing chunks of asphalt and dirt out of the ground. Sonic whips to the right and sees a straight line of eight echidnas wielding cylindrical attachments on their arms that channeled the energy they used.

"Kill that man!" one yells and they all fire at Sonic with tens of small bullets.

Sonic easily spin attacks through all of them and moves on down the road, only to be met by a small spherical robot with four thin legs skittering out of an alley. It immediately notices Sonic and opens up its top as two barrels jut out from within.

- It fires charged bullets one after another while moving, but Sonic catches on and defeats it easily.

He hears a woman scream and turns to see the burning house far down the street. He rushes toward it, only to be ambushed by five more echidna soldiers. After dispatching them, he reaches the building and breaks the front door down. He charges through the rooms in the house, narrowly avoiding a few collapsing ceilings. Finding nobody, he goes upstairs. He hops over a few holes in the floor before finding a woman and a younger boy holding each other below the window sill.

.

"Sonic? Is that you...?" she says, sputtering with coughs. He grabs her, who grabs the boy, and then Sonic carefully pulls her out onto the ledge below the window outside.

.

They sidle to the edge where a pick-up truck is parked, and let the boy jump first onto its roof, followed by the woman. Suddenly, there is a snapping noise and the house bends to one side. Sonic jumps shortly before it collapses all at once into a pile of tinder.

Before the woman can thank Sonic, he already ran away. He follows three robots down a boulevard and over a bridge, led into a trap with six echidnas on one side and three on the other.

- They attack at once, some coming swinging with short swords.

After defeating them, he hears tires screech and looks down another road to see an echidna recklessly driving a pick-up with several in the back holding arm cannons.

- They shoot back at him.

Sonic chases after them until he can slam into them and knock them off. He then pounces on the roof, causing the truck to swerve. He jumps off as the truck loses traction in its turns and does several rollovers before its side crashes into a tree.

"Sonic! Help us kill these bastards!" A ferret yells from behind a house, holding a rifle. He runs, followed by a few more men with guns. Sonic goes after them as they turn another corner and take positions behind walls and abandoned cars stopped in the road. They fire at a troop of echidnas far down the road who also took up positions. Sonic dashes through the crossfire as men die on both sides. A large ball is launched from a man without a cannon, which hits a car on the New Mobians' side before blasting all of the men near it fast into the sky. He takes the soldiers out one by one as they fire at him, but he soon wins. The few men remaining cheer, and Sonic moves on.

He sees more robots heading down a road.

- They spot him and while moving forward, turn their heads and fire at him. He avoids the stream of beams before spin attacking through them in a line.

He moves on only to find another group of robots making way in the same direction. After dispatching them, he hears five gunshots at once.

.

There are shrieks of terror and anguish. Sonic slows down and peeks over a corner on a block, to see in front of the police station five bodies bloodily plopped over another. Five shooters stand across from them, and they hold their guns back. There are more guards, aiming their weapons at a large group of people with their hands on their heads. An echidna with a finer suit than usual shouts, "Now are there anymore fools amongst you who prefer to die, go ahead and speak your minds like they did!"

There is a long, cold silence, broken by muffled sobs. "That's what I thought!" the officer yells. He turns to someone behind him. "Prepare the cattle for extraction, lieutenant." "Yessir."

Sonic can't wait any more fleeting seconds. He runs into their range.

.

- The guards immediately shout and turn and open fire at him. He avoids the bullets and slams into them.

In the chaos, the crowd erupts in a vengeful frenzy and charges towards the soldiers, grabbing who they could and beating them mercilessly. Sonic aims for the officer, who backs away behind a wall of the remaining soldiers. He knocks them down, only to hear gunshots from far away and screams right next to him. Blood sprays into the air, again and again, the crowd shouts and scatters, people running everywhere. Another troop of soldiers marches from down the street, the front line with its weapons blasting away. Bodies lie over each other on the ground, blood and dirt mixing messily over everything. Sonic charges up a spindash and launches himself into them. They, too, scatter but he picks off all that don't run away. After a short battle, he looks around to see the officer missing and the lieutenant amongst the dead.

Before he moves on, he turns, hearing a repetitive drone. He sees a robot with a proboscis, attached to its lowered hemisphere, piercing into the body of a fallen echidna. He watches as it probes the corpse, sucking up small glowing fragments of rock. It finishes and moves to the next echidna. "Disgusting," Sonic thought, and ran to the bot which spots him and scampers away. He destroys it, and scattering across the ground are a bunch of Black Stones. He turns and continues on.

He runs down a road, turns and runs down another toward an explosion. He then comes to a group of five soldiers and some robots, defeating them only to come to another group of six soldiers. An ambulance races down a road without its siren. Sonic runs behind it until it stops to a group of wounded men.

"Sonic..." one says as he's lifted on a stretcher, "Go give 'em one for me, eh?"

Another man who has his arm wrapped in plaster bandages says, "You need to stop them, Sonic, we can't do it alone..."

Sonic runs on. He sees many small robots, but one of them stands tall on its four legs and clamps them together, spinning.

- It opens up horizontal compartments and two blades swing out. It charges Sonic whiles the others move out of the way, but Sonic simply jumps over and on it and destroys the rest before running onward again.

.

He enters a park. He takes a left at an intersection on the pavement to find himself by a pond. He sees a bunch of young men around two echidna captives, both on their knees with arms cuffed behind them facing the water. A man grabs one by the neck. "You fucking tell us where your supplies come from!" "Go fuck yourself," the echidna replied, and the man growls, thrusting his head into the water suddenly. He keeps them there, and then another man backhands the other echidna in the face. "I'm sick of your shit! Fucking talk before I kill you!" The echidna looks down, thinking, and contemplatively faces the man. "Well?" he asked, to have spit splash on his eye. "You piece of shit!" He punches him straight in the face, sending him flying out of the chair into the pond. The other echidna is pulled out of the water, wheezing and coughing, spitting out water. He sees the other echidna, and yelps, "He'll dro-" before his head is pushed back underwater.

Sonic turns, hearing an oncoming lorry filled with men with guns. They talk gruffly, angrily, excitedly. One shouts out to the men by the pond, "Come on, you shit-for-brains, we need more men up front! They're attacking the school!"

"Those bastards!" one shouts back, clambering up the hill, he sees Sonic. "Oh hey, it's Sonic! Aren't these assholes such freaks to look at? They don't even look Mobian!" He climbs in.

"Sonic, there's one good thing that came out of this apocalypse and it's that us real men get to show our strength." He climbs in.

"As soon as this is over, a round on me, guys!" He climbs in.

.

Sonic looks at a group of men who wave back dismissively, more intent on interrogating the prisoners. The truck drives on and Sonic looks at it, follows it. It winds through the park onto a road, turns onto a larger road before stopping behind barbed wire. The men get out as the wire is pulled back, picking up arms in crates and running to positions pointed out by rear guards. Sonic follows them until he sees a large ball slam perpendicular into the first man, exploding a chunk out of the ground. He turns, seeing buildings collapsed, fires still raging and bullets and energy pulses being traded between lines. Between alleys, down from buildings and up from protected corners, there is a constant web of flying energy and death, catching random people by surprise every so often. Men on the outside constantly move to outflank each other, with occasional suicidal or temporary charges on the inside. Grunts, battle cries and death screams fill the air but are yet overpowered by the explosions ripping through the air everywhere from guns and cannons. Sonic holds back behind a bunker, but then sees a small group of men holding rocket launchers run up, kneel and fire. The blasts create a small lull in the violence, a cue for Sonic and the other men to rush in to fill the gap.

The men suddenly stop and take positions as a wave of robots flood in from every imaginable opening, even cracks in the floorboards in old house porches. Sonic continues, ripping through them all, taking down each enemy soldier he finds.

He soon gets so far ahead that he finds a small area of peace. He notices a large blacktop near a school and heads to it. He crosses its wide, empty expanse pockmarked with craters, overlooking a long hill into trees and houses.

.

He suddenly hears a child yell, "Son-" before the voice is suddenly muffled. He looks to the windows and sees a kid dragged back inside by an echidna soldier. Before he moves, the double door opens as an echidna walks out, wearing a colored suit and some medals.

"So, you must be this Sonic the hedgehog I've heard so much about. Even my officer told me you're quite the threat," he says.

Sonic throws his arm. "Leave the children out of this. Why are you forcing war into their lives?!"

"Why did _you_ kill tens of thousands of _us_ as soon as we appeared?"

"Why did **you** use that as an excuse to attack and conquer the world?!"

"So we should have begged for peace as your armies attacked us thereafter?"

Sonic stopped. He didn't think the New Mobians could have attacked first after the laser attack. "You... you were always like this, enslaving species not your own, even killing your own kind. Your history is filled with blood!"

The echidna paused. "So you even know our past somehow... No wonder you're so dangerous. But I do not bear the sins of my fathers. I only react to the present. If I see a blade approach, I find its source and cut it. Your words ring hollow to me, Sonic, because you are a killer from hell."

Sonic stopped, again. He felt a cold tinge creep up his spine. He tried to shake it off. "Fine. If that's what I am, then fuck talking! Get beat!"

"As I thought," the echidna replied, and withdrew a rapier from its hilt.

.

- His close-range sword attacks are swift, but he requires a short moment to change direction.

- He can fire a larger explosive ball than normal, and more energy bullets.

- He can also charge energy into his sword, which upon a slice into the ground sends a thin wave of sharp energy undulating towards Sonic.

- He can also direct long, thin, linear shots through the rapier at Sonic's direction.

Four hits defeats him.

.

As soon as he collapses to the floor, Sonic hears yelling and sees New Mobian men breaking through the doors into the school and fighting the remaining echidnas in there. Some of the children scream while echidnas are shot before their eyes. Sonic decides to turn and move on but he is immediately confronted by a cat wearing a vest. He says, "Sonic, we're finally driving them out of here! We couldn't have done it without you, man!"

Sonic nods and forces a weak smile, then runs past him. He runs down the streets, cleaning up the few groups of echidnas still holding out. He hears distant cheers and the gunshots finally dying down. A new sound builds under this, a sound of tiny gears and tiny metal feet, hundreds of them. He turns a few corners and comes to a river of fleeing robots exiting the town. He destroys as many as he can although some try to use their spinning blades against him.

He can't take them all out, eventually finding himself in another large field. He sees them heading towards and climbing over a chain-link fence with razor wire hung over the top. From the bottom, he bounces with his spin attack from robot to robot until he clears the fence. In the air, he opens up and looks around. He sees hundreds of robots advancing on the New Mobian military base, with soldiers running out of the barracks and armory, guns blazing.

Sonic waits, seeing the soldiers managing to hold their own, until he hears another explosion. He turns right, seeing a fireball burn into the sky as a large robot walks through the front gate. It has a large prism for a body, with a semispherical head with tiny red dots behind a glass visor for eyes. It walks somewhat slowly with a small gait, and on its two massive arms holds its weapons. It holds up its left arm and fires rockets towards the buildings in the base, the fire rushing through the hallways and bursting out the windows on all sides. Men scream and body parts fly. Sonic charges forward, breaking the smaller robots until he approaches the larger one.

It stops its attack after seeing Sonic, then fires a rocket at him.

.

[Act 4 Boss]

The robot will move towards Sonic in order to crush him if possible, while constantly firing with either or both of its two arms.

On the left arm:

- is a Gatling gun

- and a powerful, fast energy shot.

On the right arm:

- is a rocket launcher

- and an energy shotgun.

- In close range it will punch the ground, creating craters but also an opening for Sonic to climb to its shoulders and land a hit on its dome.

After 4 hits, each foot and leg separates into two legs and two feet, supporting a side of the body and the arm above it, and each of these leg/feet pairs separate from the main body. The armor falls off the main body, suspended between the two sides by steel cords, revealing dense, moving machinery inside as well as a turret.

- The turret fires multiple regular energy shots followed by an explosive shot.

- The legs move around faster now, with three separate cannons targeting Sonic.

However, he can simply jump into the unshielded core from behind the turret to deliver a hit. 4 more hits after that, it short-circuits, the two leg pairs fall over and the core slams into the ground, exploding.

.

[Act 5]

A man in army fatigues runs up to Sonic and suddenly halts. "Sonic! You fucking saved us man! We've heard down the line about all of your support. You've been a great help in this war so far. Everybody wondered where the blue hero was when it broke out, but I guess you had your hands full. Still, man, thanks! Thanks for everything!"

Sonic looks back at him. "I have a question," he says.

"Sure, anything," the man says.

"Where is the echidna capital from here?" he asks.

The man smiles, "I can tell you what you should know about it. We've sent recon there once, it's in the center of their empire, North-northwest of here. Their defense is impenetrable... for most people. Their military is extremely powerful and they have innumerable amounts of war robots at their service..."

Another man who was nearby, comes running and says, "Sonic, we got intel about their energy sources recently, you should know about it. Almost everyone uses a Black Stone, which slightly increases energy, and they are used to power nearly all of their equipment. Some people and machines use a more concentrated form called Black Shards which already gives them more power than a dozen men. In very rare cases we've found elite officers with the power of hundreds of men, and we assume they use a very dense concentration of the material." He paused. "In all cases, the object suffers a deep dive in energy levels when deprived of the energy source."

The first man says, "If you're going in that direction, I have to make a request."

Sonic looks at him, replies, "Sure."

"This region is under heavy duress from a local echidna base. We are losing resources trying to hold out against them, when our assistance is urgently required at the front, holding back their main forces. We're doing all we can just to gain time for reinforcements, but the pressure is too much, especially with their advanced weaponry. Please go for us and destroy the base, it's on the side of a volcano which you can't miss on the way to the capital. I'll send word down the line to give you cover so you can enter the empire."

Sonic thinks for a second, then agrees, estimating North-northwest. "I'll do it. I won't forsake my brothers in war."

The other man says, "Sonic, be _careful_ when you reach the battlefront. It's a very deadly and confusing place. We've already lost so many good men there. It's so bad even General Tails himself is fighting!"

"Tails..." Sonic says, then, "Thanks for your help. I'll be careful." He walks away from the two, feeling the gravity of the situation getting heavier by the moment. He starts running again.

.

Leaving through the rubble at the front gate, Sonic passes the road and moves NNW. He travels through large fields, some covered with grass, others barren but plowed, others filled with tall stalks of grain or corn. He enters and leaves thickets of trees and brush, hopping over small brooks and streams, passing other long roads. After a few minutes, the plants die out again and the air becomes dry. The sky is clear, the sun dipping into the horizon. Blues turn to bright reds and oranges and yellows to purple and indigo. He soon returns to empty land with nothing but mounds of dirt and rocks. As he rises over the hills he sees a very long, flat expanse stretch out before him, towards distant mountains. He slides down a slope and runs on the salt lake.

The sun drops below the horizon, dipping this half of the world into twilight as dust is kicked out from Sonic's feet slapping the hard, flat surface, twirling, rising, expanding, disappearing again. Tiny pinpricks of twinkling light come out one by one above.

They fall directly downward, and their black spherical surface is revealed upon superimposition of the earth behind it. Four long, thin legs shoot out of its underside and move themselves to catch the robot body as it hits the land. The white eyes twinkle as their bodies rush en masse around Sonic. Hundreds of stars fall from the sky and chase him. The sky stays dark until it slowly, dimly replaces them in space. Sonic keeps on running on towards the mountains as they start firing lasers and spinning with their blades to stop him. He destroys as many as he can, only for more to appear.

Sonic then notices the flat land split apart and rotate around, as two large parallel spheres. They seem to sway slowly back and forth as they move until suddenly two legs appear from one sphere and a jaw with teeth show from the other, which upon contacting the ground make it move much faster. It rushes towards Sonic, either making:

- a straight lunge

- or a pounce into the air to bite Sonic.

Sonic can hit the backside of both spheres. Two hits destroys it. Then, more start dragging the texture of the land across before snapping out into their own existence.

As the mountain range comes in range, a figure made of a 3D trapezoid, sphere and cube within the mountains stretches itself out of the rocks in a straight line. It then throws its arms and legs out from the stone, rolling out of the mountain, and it falls to the ground with a rumbling slam followed by a small landslide. The android drops onto a two-sphere beast and rides it. Meanwhile the many star-spheres trip and roll into each other, condensing into a single, growing mass which curved far over Sonic's head like a tidal wave. The two-sphere beast, still galloping, leaps and flips over Sonic, turning its four legs into one, smooth surface which extends into a surfboard shape. The android held his hands out while the two-sphere board slid across the wave-spheres behind Sonic.

- It shoots a laser beam that reflects off each sphere, which transforms on each reflection into a faster, smaller rapid-fire pellet shot.

Sonic must hit the android 4 times. After that, the wave will break over itself and form a tube.

_The camera changes from parallel to the wave's movement to perpendicular (90 CCW y axis)._

The surfing android continues its attack.

- It fires more reflected lasers,

- and it now fires slower, larger pellet shots directly at Sonic.

Sonic must avoid these and the spheres crashing behind him _(which are fatal even in Super form)_. After 4 more hits, the android is knocked off the board and falls into the wave. It gets crushed to pieces. Sonic runs out.

_The camera changes back to normal (90 CW y axis)._

The spheres stop chasing him for a while.

.

Suddenly, more spheres will fall out of the sky with their sharp legs pointing straight down. They fall like rain which Sonic must avoid. There may be electricity arcing between them which manifests in a chain of spheres falling onto the earth. After a while, a platform of spheres holding another android lowers itself from above.

- Two-sphere beasts run from ahead, jump and transform into pairs of chained spheres which the android grabs, swings and throws at Sonic. Sonic must avoid these and hit the platform from below 4 times before it breaks and knocks the android off.

The android rides on the back of a two-sphere beast, throwing sphere-drops back at Sonic. Sonic must attack it for a hit, and attack quickly, as when sphere-lightning strikes the android will leap, grab and climb the chain of spheres into the sky before the bolt detaches to use a new platform. After 8 hits, the android is destroyed and the spheres stop attacking.

.

Sonic finally reaches the mountain and starts climbing its lee side. His main obstacle are the many rocks and boulders in the way. Occasionally, an echidna will pop out from behind one and attack with an arm cannon. However, he will be mostly unopposed until he climbs high enough to reach the timber line. The ground is covered with snow and ice and there are steeper gradients and narrower ledges to cross. Mounds of snow may suddenly jump and scatter from sentry turrets that activate underneath them by sensing Sonic. They swiftly target and shoot at him. There will also be more two-sphere beasts that chase him throughout the dangerous terrain.

Upon reaching the summit, he sees the volcano's glowing crater in the near distance and travels the ridge to reach it. Every so often he will be confronted by a single echidna wearing metal armor and wielding a long, curved blade.

- These echidna swordsmen attack with very quick, straight slices that will kill non-Super Sonic.

- They can also repel spin attacks and spin dashes if the sword isn't already moving or if Sonic is behind him.

One hit will destroy the armor, and another will defeat the man.

.

Upon reaching the volcano and moving around it, Sonic will come to its backside which reveals a large slab of land standing tall over the fragmented wall and deep pits of magma below as jets of lava explode high into the air. On that slab of land is the Zexakal fortress with a large rope bridge connecting it to the side of the crater. As Sonic climbs the crater wall, he will have to leap safely across giant chasms several times while avoiding the jets when they appear. He'll also need to wall-jump up some narrow crevices to avoid otherwise impassable areas. Enemies thin out here until he reaches the bridge. Two echidna swordsmen fiercely guard it. After crossing the bridge, he is suddenly called out to by a man standing on the top of one of the fortresses' towers.

.

He has a moderate build, wearing a tailored uniform in a bold black color with no flourishes. "Impressive, hedgehog! I've been observing you breach every one of my defenses and I have to say you're quite the talented warrior! It's unfortunate that you have to _die_ but if you're as good as I think you are, you'll at least die by _my_ hands! I've been wanting a real _fight_ in this war for a while now, ahaha!" He then turns and disappears out of sight. The wide entrance is slowly cranked open and a hundred men come swarming out with weapons raised and screaming.

.

Sonic must plow through them _(preferably in Super form)_ into the base. Inside, the building seems to be made of igneous rock-made trapezoidal prisms, smoothly cut and polished, with pyramids of slow-flowing magma extruding out of some of their bottoms into square pools. Hiding in the narrow crevices between the masonry are revealed segments of electronics or machinery. The individual chambers contain many ornate surfaces, some holding weapons and armor, others books, and still others with nothing. A few chambers are dedicated to single historical or religious images in the form of tapestries, paintings, murals and reliefs.

The rooms on the first floor are mostly continuous and have no doors between them, but as Sonic descends either of the stairs located on each far edge of the fortress, he finds his enemies in waiting. Doors suddenly slide shut behind him and soldiers crowd in from elsewhere. They shout curses, threats and insults while large groups of them attack at once by bow, sword, cannon or even with fists. Whether he defeats them all or not, Sonic can spindash through the wooden doors to move on. He may be faced by another group of soldiers, or robots, or turrets and lasers emitted from the spaces in the walls, but there are still the vacant rooms too.

After a few floors in that pattern, Sonic will enter larger rooms with less ornamentation or enemies. Instead, standing on pillars and slabs jutting out from the wall are echidna swordsmen waiting for Sonic to reach their platforms one by one. Other rooms are just for storage of war materiel, including ammunition and automobiles. There are also rooms where the lava pools leak into from floors above, which have oblique planes and pillars rising above the flames and projecting bizarre shadows up the walls. In these rooms, androids which are similar but smaller from the ones before will constantly jump around and try to knock Sonic off into the lava. Some rooms have no floor and are merely cliff-faces spanned by a small stone bridge, with walls cracked open, revealing the volcanic crater wall somewhat in the distance. Wheel-shaped robots rocket out from within the lava far below, spinning drops of molten rock across the room as they dash at Sonic, their wheels aflame. Sonic can only destroy these in Super mode and he should steer clear of them otherwise.

A few such large floors down and the ceilings are only slightly above head level. The dark black stone hallways are sporadically lit by cracks and fissures covering glowing magma flows behind it. While keeping a square cross-section, they smoothly curve into the volcanic stone in half and full-loops. They end outside on a long ledge which runs the entire length of the rock mass the fortress sits upon.

A smaller building juts out of the crater wall, suspended over the ferocious furnace burning brightly below, hewn in volcanic stone. There is nothing connecting it and the end of the ledge Sonic is standing on. With no other method, Sonic backtracks on the ledge, sprints across it and leaps off. He falls.

_If Sonic happens to miss the much smaller ledge of the other building, he should forget his pride and turn Super for the extra speed. But even if he's Super, the lava will kill him._

He barely lands on the ledge, and still rolling with momentum he plows through a stone door into a circular room with open windows. He untucks and screeches to a halt as he stands before the black-clothed echidna officer.

.

"You may have gotten this far, hedgehog, but this is where the difference between us reveals itself," he says.

"You're stupid. I defeated your entire force! You have nothing," Sonic rejoins.

"On the contrary, I have the support of my entire species. From the very beginning I was going to win! Every accomplishment of my ancestors is my accomplishment, every great building my building, every echidna myself! This very location was a common home of my people very long ago, from the time before the First Great Age! You can't know what I mean, you mangy beast. You can't feel the energy of a place, the energy of something more than any one man!" the man boasts. His skin seemed to glow a red as bright as the lava around him.

"Your head is in the skies. You all think you're the best, you're unstoppable, you're gods... but you never thought a single inferior being could so easily wipe you out! You can't even comprehend it now. I won't stop here. I'll find your capital. I'll smash everything you throw at me. I'll make your leaders surrender on their knees! Maybe then you'll see how many lives you destroyed... how evil your civilization is!" Sonic replies.

"Is it evil to look out for myself? Is it evil for my people to do the same? Especially when you 'New Mobians', you slaves, free of our loving support, lash out at us just when our species barely escapes extinction! You and yours are ignorant savages. I told you, this is where the difference between us appears! Enough talk!"

.

[Act 5 Boss]

He strikes the ground, and the floor vibrates and cracks into a perfect circle. The floor slides a tad but stops itself. Then the echidna jumps high in the air and slams back down into it, dislodging it completely. It falls faster and faster towards the burning lava below.

As they fall, Sonic can try to attack him as he is waiting and defending. If Sonic can surprise him from behind he will get an early hit. Otherwise, he should jump towards the crater wall and probably transform into Super before he dies in the lava. The echidna, meanwhile, will stay on the platform until right before it hits the lava. Then, he suddenly jumps up as the platform cracks into pieces.

Lava splashes over the breaking platform, forming a column of burning, semi-solid rock. He falls and disappears behind it, but in an instant rockets towards Sonic with the lava forming a dome around him, tracing his path from the broken platform. It is constantly glowing and dripping around him, its magma "skin" sliding over itself _(similar to the fire shield in Sonic 3)_.

"Know power!" the man shouts from within it, and suddenly a huge ring of flame explodes from the carried lava. It takes shape as violently sharp scales that explode even further into a dragon's face, with burning eyes and flaming teeth on a snout of white, blue and orange flames.

Sonic can move only on the circumference of the crater but he can move up and down it to any height, so long as he keeps running. Sonic must avoid this fire dragon which chases him for as long as possible as the heat is strong enough to kill him within a certain distance if he's normal, or dramatically increase his ring absorption rate if he's Super. Balls of magma smack and fuse together within the "mouth" shortly before being fired out within a large fireball. Soon, the dragon's body cools into rock as it gets farther away from the crater, gliding smoothly over each other due to shining Black Stones inside them. While the body is cool, Sonic must turn around and break through the blocks shaping the "dragon's skull" (2-4 hits) and strike the echidna within. If Sonic waits too long, more lava comes flowing up the rock body which is then followed by an explosion of flame on top and across the flowing lava.

With one hit, the echidna is knocked out of his lava dragon. As he flies back, the Black Stones dislodge from the dragon's body and transform into a platform which he then lands on. Although it forms this while falling, a stable jet of lava somehow hits the platform directly in the center and quickly coats it with lava which then cools to rock. In whichever direction the fire echidna runs, the platform and the lava jet below it move at the same speed.

He dashes towards Sonic, causing the platform to roll across the crater wall and forcing Sonic to stand on it instead. He attacks directly:

- with flying punches

- and kicks energy-charged kicks, which can throw Sonic in the air (but not hurt him).

Sonic can hit him 3 more times here.

.

The echidna is sent hurtling back from the last hit. He winces, then leaps to the crater wall just as the lava jet finally stops, causing the platform to crash and burn below. He holds onto a ledge and snarls, "Without those Emeralds, you would be nothing! You fool! Those emeralds are nothing to the true power of the echidnas, they are but slaves to the separate echidna tribes. They are mere mimicries of the great Gifts of Zexagalaxius! Know what the Gifts gave to us – the thunderous power of the Great Age of the One Land!"

Above them, a large section of the crater wall suddenly shifts, causing rocks to crumble out and fall around Sonic. Lines curving and circling each other pull themselves out of the stone. They rotate and spin, forming the haunting, blank stone bust of an ancient deity. A gossamer, dark green energy drips from the bust to the lava.

It can attack in five ways:

- Jets of magma that burst up all around the crater wall symmetrically.

- A column of lava rises in the center, suddenly bursting out lava in set intervals as it rises, forcing Sonic into a short vertical space which quickly drops and breaks apart as it falls (Sonic must wait for enough space to go through and back up).

- Having large twin jets of lava spurt a double helix up the wall, rotating it while reinforcing it, to lure Sonic to the top where his movement is more restricted.

- Walls of magma burst up the crater, and start spinning across it (forcing Sonic to move horizontally).

- An explosion flashes up the dripping energy, into the body, and forms an exploding screaming face that will burn out Super Sonic's rings unless he swiftly escapes.

Meanwhile, the officer will be running towards Sonic with a flaming epee drawn.

- He first attacks with a dashing lunge, then jumps back, somersaulting backwards high through the air, before landing and lunging forward again.

- Otherwise he draws close and repeatedly stabs and slices at Sonic to put him on the retreat.

Sonic must avoid the golem's lava hazards and the epee, and slam into the echidna for a hit. After 3 hits (or 2 if Sonic got that optional first hit), all of the lava and stones, including the ancient statue, will instantly crumble and collapse into the crater. The fire echidna drops his epee and takes a short breather before jumping backwards into the wave of falling rocks from the statue.

"It's not over yet! You can't beat a Black Shard!" he yells out, before the rocks suddenly clamp together and reassemble back into the statue's form. The green energy glows brightly between the cracks within the stone.

It rushes Sonic as its head rotates to always face him.

- It tries to slam into Sonic and crush him to death,

- doing so while the different segments of its body independently fire a laser beam in cycles. Each segment starts to slide and fall downwards after it shoots its beam, before returning in place for the next shot). Because of this, the golem's surface undulates as it fires in waves at Sonic, who is forced to evade at high speeds.

Sonic must take a chance and leap off the crater wall and land on the statue's chest. Once there, he must avoid the lasers and circle around the head (which rotates to keep up with him) until he finds a hole in the stone in its nape (this is a lot easier as Super Sonic, who can just fly there). There, he can jump inside where the echidna is.

.

However, just when he finally gets inside it, a massive explosion blasts Sonic right back out and the bust scatters into pieces. While Sonic lands back on the crater wall, the officer is sent flying, with his uniform burnt and ripped and his skin on fire.

"Hahaha! You think I'm too stupid to learn, huh?!" he cackles as he is spinning through the air.

"Even if this body dies, my people will still win this war and we shall survive for eons to come! That's the difference! I have always been invincible!" He lands on another make-shift Black Stone platform before launching off with an explosion of swirling energy behind him. He holds back one fist, which glows red hot.

"You can never win! We are the most superior race!" he screams through the rushing air.

.

In an instant, Sonic must avoid his blazing punch as it is a very powerful attack. It is too fast to evade. It will take away 50 of his rings instantly. If he is Super and has that amount or less, that means he will de-transform and fall. If he is normal he will die either way, either instantly or from the shock which will throw him helplessly into the lava. With courage, Sonic must move forward and under the punch, and with adept timing, Sonic must strike the officer from below for the final hit.

Although, if he misses the final hit, the echidna will simply miss and fall into the lava.

.

Sonic's mission isn't completed yet. He must circle back to the small building where he'll spot a thin point in the pillar holding up the Zexakal fortress. He must make one last flying leap, strike that point, then jump back (or fly in Super mode) to save himself. The hit sends a crack zipping through the pillar. It shatters under the weight and topples over. Again, Sonic must run out onto the crater wall as the fortress crashes above him, raining heavy death down both sides of the crater.

.

Outside the crater, boulders are sent flying, smashing each other apart, beginning an avalanche which uproots the forest downslope. As the roar of flowing earth ebbs out, a large cloud of dust billows into the night.

Sonic climbs to the peak of the volcano and again looks NNW. He sees on the horizon red fires and giant plumes of smoke glowing below the moon's light. He jumps off the peak in that direction.

.

[Act 6]

He flies through the cold night air, the moonlight shining softly on snow picked up by wispy winds. He slams down into a cornice overlooking a steep slope interrupted by large rocks. It gives way under him and he falls down the slope while a rumbling spreads around the mountain face. If he stays still he sinks into the snow, so he must run without stopping. Behind him, a critical reaction dislodges a large shelf of snow which topples onto the slope and begins picking up speed and size. The avalanche roars menacingly with a mixed din and nearly catches Sonic. As he runs down and away, he jumps over the coming rocks to keep from being trapped. Passing back through the timberline, he runs through the trees which are immediately rolled over behind him. He avoids a few more rocks as the slope gradient wanes into foothills and the avalanche slows down behind him.

He moves through the hills, the earth ripped out and torn up like stretched clay. There are loop-de-loops and emmelman turns carved into the land. Smooth curves suddenly change direction or stopping abruptly against more curved ground spattered with fields of sharp broken rock spikes. As he moves through, he jumps over another chasm that cuts deep into the earth. The flat anvil top of a massive, dark storm cloud rolls over the moon high above.

.

The ground flattens out into small, rolling hills and fields with scattered rocks of every size. As Sonic looks around, he spots a bus driving on a dirt road towards a collection of lights in the distance. He catches up and runs next to it, and several men pull down the windows and wave at him. "Sonic!" "Hell yeah, now the party's gonna start!" "Let's kill all those bastards!" "Whoo! Fuck yeah!"

Sonic runs ahead of them and soon hears gunshots, explosions, yells and cries echo through the air. As he climbs a hill it all comes into view. Behind a long, tall chain-link fence, he sees a few stark concrete buildings surrounded by a field of tents, endless piles of crates, grids of parked vehicles and uniformed men and women moving everywhere between. Far beyond the encampment there are flashes of explosions and gunfire. He slows down in front of two guards guarding an entrance.

"It's Sonic!" one says to the other. "It can't be!" the other responds.

"Let me in. I'm here to help," Sonic says.

"Wait. We'll let you in, but you should talk to the Commander before you go out there," one says. The other adds, "He should be in the large tent immediately to the right."

"Thanks," Sonic says as they nod to him, then each other, and press a button to open the gate up.

He runs past the many soldiers who see him and cheer, calling out his name. He avoids their gazes, avoids responding to their questions and comments. He passes many people sitting at tables, throwing cards down, smoking, talking, sitting alone. He spots the officer's tent taking up a large square of space, its flap entrance guarded. Before he could speak, they step out of the way and open each flap for him. Sonic stops for a second, not expecting the courtesy, and then walks in.

There are crates around, tables with laid-out detailed maps marked with circles and arrows. In the center and back, sitting in a leather chair behind a desk lit by two lamps was a gruff, bearded bulldog man in a stuffy decorated uniform, writing furiously on a sheet of paper.

"Sit," he says, and nods his head to a folded chair in the corner. Sonic takes it and looks at him.

"I've expected you. I heard you completed a mission from the captain of the base at Alabaster Town. Your success bought us more time," he says, finally finishing what he is writing. The Commander looks up.

"It was on the way," Sonic shrugged.

"Heh. Right," the man smiled coldly. "You must be in a hurry. You plan on charging right through their front line, right?"

"Yeah. I'm not here to enlist, and I'm not here to fight it out. My intention is to go straight to the echidna capital, find their leaders and defeat them," Sonic answers.

"The hero speaks! Haha. What a noble goal," he cheers, then drops his smile. He takes a long, annoyed breath. "You don't know anything about this war, do you?"

Before Sonic could respond, the Commander continued, "We've finally established a standing army of the best soldiers in the world, and you know what? Most of them are _already dead_. We send out elite troops, just to get them mowed down by the echidnas' death machines. We send out tanks and bombers to stop those, and _they_ get destroyed by magic from a single person! They have men that die after 10 of our own die! Some after 100! This does not add up to our advantage, Sonic the hedgehog."

He stands up and shouts, "Fucking cocky BASTARD!" baring his fangs. "Did you really think you could just end this all, just by yourself?! You have seen nothing like we have!" Sonic suppressed a smirk.

The Commander scrunches his face and looks away in disgust. He clears his throat. "Their technology is centuries, if not millenia ahead of ours! Their appearance was the ultimate ambush, an omen of apocalypse. Their empire appeared out of thin air, capturing large parts of our territory instantaneously. We've completely lost contact with anyone from any of the cities. That's tens of thousands of people missing. _At least_. Then they started attacking..." He forcefully sighs, sits back down and rubs his face, shaking his head.

"While you were absent, there was a flurry of global activity to support the unified military defense force. It was very sudden and there was social resistance, sometimes violent. Nobody wanted to be near anything like Robotnik again. But once the echidnas came and attacked, everyone universally worked together for survival. It's instinct. This is the final battle of Mobius. And right here, this is where we're making our last attack. Everyone here has decided not to protect their families and homes but to protect the entire world and every free Mobian soul."

He pulls his hands off the table and glares at Sonic. "I don't want to know why you ignored your own duty at the critical moment. If it never happens again, it's not important. I want to trust you, Sonic. General Tails believes you are the key to certain victory, but we are prepared if you fail."

His glare is frozen and for a moment he just motionlessly leers at Sonic. "You are very fortunate General Tails respects you, Sonic."

Sonic cynically overlooks the threat out of boredom. But what he said makes him remember Tails, and for some reason the memory is from around when they first met, just one of those good days back then. Tails was looking up at him smiling, his two tails twirling in excitement and there was an emotion of happy friendship... Something catches in Sonic's throat. He feels his feet again, standing on ground. Earthy ground covered with a tarp. He realized things have changed completely. Tails... Tails is no longer his friend. Just that thought made Sonic forget everything else and for just a moment, Sonic felt his heart starting to fall into a bottomless hole, taking down everything that's Sonic with it, and that was what caught Sonic's throat. He immediately shoved it all away in his head. He looked back at the Commander.

The Commander had turned the chair around, looking the other way. He continued speaking. "This entire operation... is just to buy time. We made our estimates. It's impossible to win, but we thought we could hold them off for a few months. Enough time to reinforce defenses elsewhere... And we learned, this isn't chance. They're holding back their best forces. We estimated again... to a few more weeks. Then only... only what, 18 hours ago... they launched their main attack force. Radiating in all directions from their capital. And here, in their most vulnerable spot, after less than a day of fighting, we finally touched reality."

He turns around. He sees Sonic's attitude has changed and suspiciously checks his anger. "We'll be finished before this week ends. They outnumber us 100-to-1 and they kill us 100-to-1. Our hospitals are already full. Even the bravest soldiers of Mobius are crushingly filled with fear and doom. There is a seed of panic. Morale falls like a meteor."

Sonic, having been quiet all this time, indeed, for more than just this conversation, stood up himself. The Commander waited.

Sonic speaks. "I'm your only chance. I have the Emeralds. I've saved the world before! I'm the fastest thing alive! And even if you won't listen to why, I've never given up on protecting innocent people! I've seen other worlds and faced an enemy much stronger than anything... **anything** that the echidnas have used. I'm not going to stop. Stop?! Haha!"

He walks up to the Commander's desk and slaps his hands down. The Commander narrows his eyes. "If you think I'm a coward, try to kill me right here," he declares, coldly and slowly. "Send your entire army to stop me and I'll kill them all one by one. It's useless."

Sonic turns around and paces away before stopping. "I'm going to get there, and I'm going to win. This was a waste of time."

The Commander suddenly shouts out, "Wait! Sonic." But Sonic was already walking towards the entrance.

"We're on your side, Sonic!"

Sonic was already outside. He ran past the soldiers again. He turned, looking at one of the buildings. He saw people in white coats run in and out, men covered in plaster on stretchers lying out in the night air. Some turn to see the commotion and see Sonic. He looks away.

.

He runs up hill after hill as vans and trucks with brights on move back and forth between the unseen battlefield with arms and men. Darkness covers everything. Sonic runs up a tall final hill before he finally comes to the front of the war.

Gun blasts sparkle from side to side, two crashing waves of bullets and energy balls. The energy balls briefly lit up the ground beneath them before exploding on contact. Sonic then grabs his ears as a large blast comes from his right. He turns, seeing an artillery cannon lob a ball far into the other side. He tries to follow it with his eyes, but is stunned, seeing it explode in mid-air from an interception explosive. He looks back to the war-torn earth in the moonless night, seeing hundreds of infantry in groups charge at each other from both sides. Echidnas with arm cannons shooting at New Mobians with guns. He hears the constant, heavy tread of flanking tanks on an isolated mass of echidna infantry. As he watches them, he then sees small robots, which he had never seen before, crawl en masse all over each one, drilling through their armor, only to be picked off by a platoon of riflemen escorting the tanks. Sonic then looks at the giant fires he thought he had seen so far away. They were coming from forests, lit all around the landscape by this humongous, endless battlefield. The infernos blasted chaotic light on the tens of thousands of figures dancing with violence and death.

Sonic runs down the hill.

He passes some strings of parked vehicles and small camps, and ends up at a trench at the edge of the battle. He peeks over the edge, only to see a large group of echidna soldiers sprinting towards him. They concentrate fire on a pillbox with a Gatling gun that mows them down.

.

"Sonic!" he hears behind him.

He turns to see a young man, a squirrel, not much past his teens. "Do you remember me? Back in Grand City, when Robotnik attacked? ...no?"

Near him is a mouse, thinner and taller than he. "Why would he?" he says.

Sonic stares at the kid. He continues, "Uh, I'm a huge fan, uh, I had no idea - I can't believe you're here! Are you, are you uh going to help us? You are, right?"

Sonic paused, then says, "I'm not going to help you fight. I'm going to help you win."

The two laugh, and the squirrel shouts, "Hey, everyone! Sonic's here! Guys, we're going to win, now! Hooray!" He turns back to Sonic, "Oh yeah, I'm Greg." The other says, "I'm Johnny." Greg continues, "I can't believe you're here to help us. We can actually do it!"

Sonic looks back above the trench. He sees empty space. He leaps up onto the grass and starts running.

.

Lighting tears across the sky. The wind picks up. Sonic runs as hundreds of people wearing helmets, holding rifles, run all around him. He slams through a few echidnas, and the lightning comes faster. The constant explosions, screams, roars of men, machine and nature become ambient. A few bullets, a single burst of flame, and a few more people fall lifeless to the ground. Sonic runs on.

He must break through large groups of soldiers who appear as different types:

- with cannons,

- with swords,

- also with shields,

- also with better armor,

- also with skill in attacking Sonic and evading Sonic's attacks,

- or without skill in fighting Sonic.

In addition, the sphere-spider robot he met before, along with the smaller drilling robot, are now commonplace.

After finishing one wave of enemies, he's met by a cavalry of echidnas and androids riding the backs of the two-sphere beasts. Some of the androids bear a slight resemblance to the creature he fought in Ka'ralei so long ago now... except with chainsaws for arms instead of scythes. In random intervals, artillery takes aim at Sonic's location, but so long as he keeps moving he can easily avoid the deadly barrage.

_[Warning: Disturbing material ahead.]_

He comes to a group of New Mobian soldiers fighting a group of echidnas and helps them win, to their delight, but it is short-lived. A giant machine approaches on a giant cylinder rolling with sharp, man-stabbing spikes, and from its side are tentacle-like spears flailing and undulating about in the air. As men try to flee from the grinder, the tentacles whip out and pierce their spines. Each man screams a monstrous noise of bursting blood and maximum pain before they are flinged under the advancing grinder. Sometimes the tentacles removed their heads and impaled them on spikes lining its bloodstained metallic body. Many skulls of different species are lined up there already. They keep their distance from Sonic and swing at him one by one, which is easy to avoid by jumping or rolling. However, any tentacle behind Sonic will stop and aim for a quick instant kill backstab. As long as Sonic remains in ball form, he's safe.

Sonic attacks the death machine by jumping above the cylinder and hitting its vulnerable engine core, but he isn't quick enough to stop the machine from tossing the bodies below to be gorily crushed underneath. 8 hits ends the madness.

.

There's another wave of cavalry followed by a wave of an infantry, this time with some soldiers wielding powerful grenade launchers.

After defeating them, he is attacked by wheel robots with rims covered in a ring of raging fire. But just after Sonic sees them advance, he is bombarded by repeated strings of energy projectiles. The artillery fire is quickly replaced by mortar fire and a few guided-by-string rockets, leading to waves of explosions he must carefully navigate until he comes to their source. He reaches an attack point of automatic cannons, mortars, and rocket launchers, protected by three automatic sentry turrets which take 2 hits. The cannons take 4 hits and the rest take 1 hit each.

.

Sonic approaches the center of the massive battlefield. It was a very wide space, nearly entirely flat, but completely filled with thousands of men, machines, vehicles, fire, gunfire, explosions, blood, gore, screams, battle cries, constant, constant yelling. Before he could make sense of his surroundings, Sonic is immediately fired upon by a full company of one hundred soldiers. Unable to break through the wall of energy death, he hides in a thicket of trees which is quickly chipped away by projectiles. As the marching echidnas come closer, Sonic is about to risk a flawless charge when he hears fighter planes zoom by while unloading their machine guns. They shortly hit their mark and Sonic finds his path opened! The enemy troops scatter in response so Sonic starts moving. He runs through their ranks, only to see the leading fighter plane shot down by flak in the distance. Most turn before entering the anti-air cannons' range, but the next two first fighters manage to survive the aerial barrage.

He's near a burning forest, when suddenly lightning cracks down through the sky and shatters a nearby tree into splinters. He stops and looks, for just a moment, when an energy shot appears, giving him a split second to see it and jump out of the way.

.

"Aren't they lucky?" An echidna says, wearing a soldier's uniform without a helmet. "They have somebody who's actually _strong_ like you to bring them all the way back here. It's pretty impressive. Too bad I'm going to kill you, and then all of your weak, stupid friends."

"Shut up and fight," Sonic says.

.

His aiming is much better than his inferiors, and he fires at a steady rate with occasional pulses of swifter fire.

His attacks are:

- Firing normally.

- He charges his power, jumps high and fires it down at Sonic, causing a moderate explosion.

- In close-range, he switches from steady, perpendicular strikes with blasts from his cannon.

After 2 hits, he aims his cannon below him and fires a constant stream of energy.

- He bends back and uses the propulsion to slam into Sonic, although he loses energy quickly.

After 2 more hits:

- he uses the cannon to leap high in the air and then slows his fall with large, scattered shots that come down in waves. Before he lands, Sonic can dodge the bullets and deliver the final strike (or he could use Super and just fly up to him).

He falls to the ground, and Sonic notices a small sliver of something glow dimly in his sternum. A Black Shard.

.

The wind blows harder. Sonic looks to a burning forest ahead and sees the fire lick the wind and bloom larger, with embers lifting high and far into the air. The smoke billows under the storm cloud above. A lightning bolt cracks every other second. For a moment, Sonic can only look at the thousands of tongues of flame stretching out of the conflagration into the dark night.

"Sonic!" Sonic jumps, and turns around to see Greg the squirrel running to him, panting with gun in hand. The mouse isn't there. Around him are hundreds of men charging forward and advancing vehicles finally followed by a series of tanks). They cheer Sonic's name as they go by.

"Sonic!" Greg says again. Sonic looks at him. "You did it, you got us here! I didn'- uh, I mean, I knew you could do it! You were incredible. Just... incredible."

"It was easy," Sonic replies, turns around and starts running again, ignoring the "wait" someone else probably said.

.

Sonic catches up to the front of rushing Old Mobian forces and supersedes them. He then comes to a line of large robots like the one attacking Alabaster Town. While attacking the one in front of him, the others are hit by shells which send them reeling back. Then Sonic's opponent is also hit as the tanks roll close to him. He runs forward and is suddenly confronted by a very large mass of soldiers, scattered across in different groups, all firing at Sonic. Some wear a thicker armor that requires a hit to dispel before the echidna beneath can be hit. Some have weapons which project energy balls at slower speeds so as to hit targets above via parabolas.

Sonic plows through them and then the soldiers behind him clash into them as well. They whittle away their forces as Sonic continues. There is a wave of robots, including new flying ones with mounted, rotating turrets that spray rapid-fire bullets towards him. Following them are a bunch of large, floating spheroid machines with large circular saws swung by steel cables, with a circular shadow underneath of live current. Sonic must avoid the saws and time a jump over the circle to hit the machine directly, and do so four times before a single one is defeated. After that, more shells slam into the others giving Sonic room to move on. He faces another wave of all sorts of robots, followed by a wave of soldiers led by melee attackers.

The echidna's artillery comes down heaviest now as Sonic crosses a large field. He is confronted by a few swordsman of the same skill level that he fought on the mountain tops earlier, which slow him down as a massive wave of vehicles and cavalry followed by robots and soldiers charge towards him. He destroys a few of the vehicles with their mounted turrets as they try to run him over, only to face an onslaught of projectiles of all sorts which fill the air with a ferocious swelling of pops, blasts and buzzes. Again, he finds cover to avoid certain death, only for the sound to suddenly double as bullets, mortars, rockets and shells are launched the opposite way. He sees the New Mobian army, reinforced, charging towards the echidna army, with men on both sides stretching out in lines towards the horizon over hills and through forests. Fighter jets zoom forwards, to be intercepted by wingless echidna fighter aircraft. They loop and spin through the air, some bursting into flames, their engines screaming before they explode into the ground.

The roar of the armies shakes the pebbles on the ground as their great masses collide into each other. Within seconds the two groups split into smaller ones that rush around each other, trying to outmaneuver each other. Positions are taken, some soldiers charge while others hold still. Blood and dust fill the air as the battlefield becomes a sea of weapons and armor crashing into each other in violent, chaotic waves. As if part of the battle, drops of ice suddenly fall from the sky and slam into both sides. Some soldiers are hit in the head and drop dead on the spot. There is a growing confusion except amongst the robots, which lead the organisms to continue fighting. Sonic takes a chance and runs deep into the fray, attacking the enemies in his way and those overwhelming a group of his allies. He dashes forward only to be suddenly blocked by an enemy, to defeat them and run again only to be stopped again.

After a long enough battle, Sonic breaks through the other end and finds himself at a stream with makeshift bridges lying over it. He stands upon one, only for the other end to be blocked by a single echidna. He is buff, tall, large, with thick armor and wielding a war hammer in one hand and a halberd in the other.

.

"This is the end. You must be a pretty good fighter to push us back this far. But this is as far as you'll ever go," he says, and then swings his hammer into the bridge, shattering it into shrapnel and flotsam that is carried downstream. Sonic jumps and lands on the nearby stream bank.

"It's a shame you think your freedom means anything. Your kind should have surrendered. Slavery is much more pleasant than dying by my hand. I'll show you true freedom. Your body parts will each soon know a volume of space they never knew intact in your weak flesh."

Sonic replies, "Uh-huh, yeah, sure. Hurry up and fight so I can move ahead."

The echidna guffaws. "What a mouth this one has! You don't know who you're talking to, I'm..."

Sonic interjects, "You have a Black Shard, don't you? Without that, you're nothing but meat. A giant slab of meat that hasn't been eaten yet."

He snarls. "You're a cocky fool who's about to die. I am the great Galgatroth, killer of a thousand men! Know endless fear, you puny slave bastard!" He leaps into the air, throwing his hammer arm back above his head.

The hammer head slams through all of the water which explodes away from it and crashes into the rocky bed underneath, blasting earth into the air. So much of the ground is heaved out that upon falling back down it dams up the stream, causing the water to flood around it leaving it dry. Galgatroth picks up his hammer and stands in the makeshift arena, fiercely grinning at Sonic. Sonic jumps onto the triangular area without a change in expression. Galgatroth sees this and snarls again.

.

With his hammer:

- he makes a wide horizontal swing that he may keep swinging around for several spins as he moves forward,

- or he makes a single vertical swing that slams into the ground where Sonic was with the force of a small explosive.

- If he is far enough away he can make another leaping vertical attack that sends hazardous shockwaves reverberating through the ground.

With his halberd:

- he can combine horizontal and vertical slices without stopping,

- or he may stab out with its pike which has the range of half the small arena.

Sonic must avoid these attacks and get in close to hit him. Galgatroth tends to keep distance at first, but will kick Sonic if he is close for too long.

After 8 hits, he throws his weapons away and shouts in frustration.

- He tries to bum-rush Sonic while throwing slow but powerful punches that will send Sonic flying into the water if he is hit.

- He also tries to grab Sonic, and if effective he will squeeze him hard before throwing him at something hard.

- At a far enough distance, he may signal his attack by first throwing his empty palms forward, launching a powerful gust of air that Sonic must run fast against to avoid being thrown into a rock.

- When Sonic is close, as he still needs to be, Galgatroth will throw slow but heavy punches at him.

After 8 more hits, Galgatroth finally succumbs and collapses.

.

Sonic jumps out the other side of the stream and climbs a short hill to find himself surrounded by New Mobian soldiers. The ones setting up an outpost cheer him on, but most are rushing forwards towards the hills ahead. They seem to have found a shortcut around the stream and are once again ahead of Sonic. It still hails, but most of the soldiers seem to ignore it as they now don helmets. He starts hearing the pulse of their march, a heavy beat like the earth was a drum. He turns around, looking at the distance he has covered since he first reached the battlefield, only to see a familiar squirrel run towards him, followed by the mouse walking up at a slower pace.

"We're winning, Sonic, We're winning! We're finally winning, we're winning! It's all thanks to you, Sonic. I never thought we'd actually get this far. You've scared most of the echidnas away! I'm so proud to be fighting next to you... This is the best day of my life!"

Sonic looks curiously at Greg. His smile, his huge eyes... didn't fit the setting. "You're still a boy... Greg. Why are you here?"

Greg retorts, "I'm _not_ a boy, I'm a man! And I'm here to fight! For my family, for my friends, for my girl! For my country! For all of Mobius! This is the final battle! Once we win, nobody will want to fight each other ever again! People will hurt too much to ever think fighting is worth it! Once we win this war, there will never be war again!"

Johnny tries to explain. "They sent us here because they needed all the help they could get, but we would have volunteered, anyway. This really is the war to end all wars! Why wouldn't we fight the last fight there'll ever be? That's why we're not boys."

Sonic forces a smile. "Right. Once this is all over, people can finally be at peace. Too many people have sacrificed themselves for it. There's no more villains after this. We'll win... and that's it. ...eternal victory..."

Johnny smirks. "Hell yeah. And we'll have a party that'll never end!"

Greg shouts, "Yeah! We're gonna do it, Sonic! This battle is for everything. With you here, finally, we can finally beat them. We'll make it! Let's do it, Sonic! Let's go and win this thing once and for all!"

Sonic, feels a brief spark of enthusiasm and shouts, "Yeah! Let's show these fucking bastards what we've got!"

The men around them cheer and yell, hitting their armor and making noise as it still hails and thunders. The wind still blows strong, and now even stronger. Sonic says to Greg, "I'll go first and make it way easier for all of you, haha! See if you can catch up!" He gives a smirked grin and a thumbs-up, then turns and dashes ahead. Greg returns a brilliant smile, confidently lowering his brow, throwing a thumbs-up back at him.

.

Sonic runs through the ranks of the army as they climb the hills. As they traverse a tiny mountain at the end of the hills, they slow down due to the incline, but Sonic rushes onward, propelled by the bubbling spirit of hundreds of soldiers cheering all around him. As he climbs, the beat of the march gets louder with each pulse. But even as Sonic passes the New Mobian army, the sound just keeps on getting louder, louder than could even be made by their forces. Each "BOOM" shakes the trees and dislodge pebbles and stones. The soldiers start talking anxiously amongst themselves. Sonic reaches the top of the small mountain, passing an abandoned Old Mobian encampment including their artillery cannons, and stops on the other side.

.

"Oh... _no_..."

Sonic looks behind him. He sees a few ten thousand soldiers, a significant amount to be sure. He then looks ahead again.

Lightning flashes nearby but the thunder is ducked by the now-deafening pulse. The mountain dips into an extremely wide valley that seemed to be former farmland. It's perfectly flat, extending to the horizon. And it is completely filled up. Like a glacier slowly sliding across the ground, there are soldiers and robots and machines of all sorts, a giant mass without distinct separation, stretching out all the way left and all the way right and all the way into the distance. It is endless; conservatively, a million units. This was the sound's origin: the echidna's main attack force. The forward line is composed of death machines. Sonic hesitates before this terrifying vista, then he rushes down the hillside onto the plain.

.

He first fights another man-grinder before fighting a saw-arm spheroid. Following that, he faces a new death machine: a large cube-shaped tank with 2 cannons and 3 turrets. It fires:

- rapid-fire bullets

- explosive shells one after another,

- occasional spurts of a flammable gel which lights when shot at.

Sonic must avoid the many projectiles and find a way to its backside where its armor is vulnerable to attack. It turns quickly, though, so Sonic must do this often. 6 hits causes the engine to burst, breaking the machine.

Meanwhile, soldiers and robots charge all around him, most barely attacking Sonic before starting to climb up the hill. However, the New Mobian army reached the summit at the same time and commandeers their artillery. Even while being mowed down by gunfire, the echidna forces continue to push with a never-ending assault. Sonic tries to push through it himself, but it is literally physically impossible to get far into the million of units which constantly bombard and push him back. The New Mobians call in air support, but it is intercepted by Old Mobian fighters and their titanic fleet remains undeterred.

Somehow the Old Mobians get within range of the hill encampment and destroy their own artillery, with the death machines forcing the soldiers to flee. The New Mobian defense is reduced to prone soldiers shooting downhill, but they run out of ammo far before the echidnas run out of men. The tanks finally arrive and lead a crazy charge downhill through enemy forces, but as soon as they reach the plain they are obliterated by gunfire and explosives, if not sooner.

Sonic is surrounded on both sides, but there is space parallel to the Old Mobian fleet and the base of the hill. He passes trapped New Mobians who use the same idea. But there is no end in sight; instead, in their attempt to flank they are themselves outflanked by the much, much more numerous enemies. Sonic reaches the side of the mountain and enters a rock garden, only to find himself cornered off by two flanks of echidnas. Sonic has to backtrack. The echidnas reinforce themselves quicker than they die, slowly but very surely increasing pressure of total destruction on the New Mobian forces who are losing their position.

.

Somehow through the unworldly noise, Sonic hears Greg screaming, "Nooo!" Sonic turns around, finding him uphill, and he runs to his side.

He pushes past soldiers who no longer bear smiles or enthusiasm. They cannot turn away from the endless enemy forces, and many start retreating farther uphill. Sonic reaches Greg, who holds a limp, bloody Johnny in both his arms. "Jooohnnyyyy! No, come back! Come baaack!"

He looks up at Sonic, his contorted face frowning deeply, wet with tears and drops of blood. He breathes in sharply, exhaling in sobs. "He's dead. He's... he's... not coming back... My best friend... is dead..."

Sonic crouches down and puts his hand on Greg's shoulder. "Let him go, Greg. Put him down. There's nothing you can do-"

"That's right!" Greg suddenly yells out, fiercely glaring back at Sonic. He stares at him for a second, then gently puts Johnny down behind a boulder and then stands up facing Sonic, his fists shaking. "That's right! There's _nothing_ we can do! It's fucking obvious now! No matter how much we fight, they always have more to kill us with! How the fuck did I ever think we'd win?!"

Sonic then stands. "You had determination! Soldiers die in war, Greg. But there are many innocent people who will die if we don't keep fighting. Even if they are a thousand times stronger, there's always a way to win. We can win."

Greg yells louder, pointing at Sonic, "If only we were all invincible like _you_, Sonic! You don't know what war is like even if you're fighting in one! You don't know what it means to lose, you never fucking did!"

He pushes Sonic who takes the push. "You fucking drugged us with your charisma! You made us forget reality. You don't even know..." He points out at the undulating field of enemies. "This- this is their standard attack force! What they sent before was just to kill us... This is what they're using to conquer the world! These million-men forces are typical! They're what's demolishing every other part of Mobius! We're only- we're only fighting a tiny piece of their entire army!" He grimaces, grinding his teeth, while crying again. "To them, this war is just a game. A game! A **game**! They could have killed us if they didn't think it was FUN. Fuck, Sonic, you still don't _fucking_ understand! You never will! We're all going to die!"

Sonic steps forward and grabs Greg by the shoulders. He shouts, "Damn it, Greg! Get yourself together! You think we can just walk away? You think you can just blame me and hope things turn out okay? You think we should just _give up and hope_? This is the **final** war, man! These are the odds we have, this is the intensity of the battles we must win! I know what it means to lose. If we lose, we **die**! We **all** die! No matter how strong I am, I never forget that! We don't have a choice, Greg. We have to fight! You and I need to return to the fight!"

Greg looks away, crushed. He resists his sobs. "uh... uh... I know... I just... it's so scary. They're so strong. So many people have died, so many... Johnny... and..."

Sonic lets go, steps back, and speaks more calmly, "Listen, Greg. We're the only thing that stands between them and the world. Between them and everything we love. You said it yourself, we're fighting for Mobius. For all of Mobius! They're scary, yeah, but we have the entire world behind us! Everyone is counting on us to win, Greg, no matter what. No matter what! We have the strength of all of Mobius, and that makes us much scarier than them!"

Greg wipes away his tears with the back of his hand. "You're right. I have to accept it. Even I might die. No... I probably will die... But... it's worth dying to save the world. It's... it's worth it. To win."

Sonic paused. "Yeah. Come on. Our brothers need us."

Greg swallows. "Yeah...Yeah. Yeah! Let's do it, Sonic."

.

Sonic nods and they both run back to the front of the battle. Sonic fights through row after row of soldiers and robots. He fights war machines again, and vehicles carrying more soldiers. He doesn't move much but he fights and fights and fights. Bodies pile on the ground but they are stamped into the ground as the Old Mobian army advances faster. Sonic and the New Mobians are pushed back up the hill, over the mountain, and down into the previous hills. They push the Old Mobians back every now and then but it's two steps back for each step forward. The land becomes covered with corpses and craters and streams of red blood. The New Mobians never stop fighting, and neither do the Old Mobians.

The hail stops. Again, there is a wave of confusion. The echidnas talk to themselves in the midst of the battle, conveying information from person to person, and after a few minutes, they mysteriously retreat all at once. Their robots and death machines continue to attack but some retreat as well. The New Mobians don't give chase. The crossfire thins out the remainder until, finally, there is some degree of quiet. Even the marching beat starts to slowly lose volume. Sonic moves back to the New Mobian army, and hears murmured confusion about the enemy retreat. Nobody dares shout out victory, unsure of how such a long battle could end so suddenly, so strangely.

Sonic looks around for Greg, but he is lost in the sea of standing soldiers. Tired, he sits at the base of the hill. The only ones running around now are the medics, quickly treating the wounded and carrying the worst off into ambulances, while soldiers with less grievous afflictions tend to themselves, rest and talk. A convoy follows the ambulances back to the base. The wind acts abnormally, sometimes being perfectly still before suddenly gusting hard. It starts raining.

.

He overhears a conversation from a veteran nearby. He walks to him, hearing the scarred soldier give his opinion on the situation.

"I don't like it. This silence isn't right. It's not natural. You guys can't feel it, but there's this heavy pressure. It can't be the storm... storms have low pressure. This... it's immense. I've never felt anything like it," he says.

A younger man, who seems to be sharp, says, "If they didn't retreat, we'd be dead within 2 hours. It would only be a matter of how long their entire fleet would take to surround and obliterate us. It doesn't make any sense to leave. Unless..."

"Wait, look," someone called out. "Look!"

There is a row of androids coming down from the mountain, each holding a large cannon in their center which sticks out both ways. Their inverted triangle faces are unsettling, especially above those strange triangular bodies pierced by their cannons. They advance at an uncanny pace, which is just slightly faster than what seems like slow, that it's hard to describe what makes them seem so eerily dangerous. There are only 20.

Another man starts shouting. "Aaahh! Oh god, oh god oh god oh god not this again. I'm... I'm getting out of here!"

"Wait, what is it? Man, he cleared out of here fast."

The veteran was taking a large puff from a cigar. He blew it all out into a single smoke ring. The ring is nearly flawless. He says, "The wind stopped." It had. The rain did too.

He takes out his sniper rifle, sets it up quickly, and crouches down to aim. "We need to kill all of these guys right now."

An officer came running over. "Hold on! What do you think you're doing? We don't know if... wait, what are those?!"

Rocketing past the androids are sparse columns of floating robots. They're shaped like dodecahedrons, with their upper and lower square pyramid halfves spinning in opposite directions. A dark red glow flits out of the core as it rotates. They charge towards the resting New Mobian army.

"The retreat was a trick! Everyone, attack! Destroy them all!"

A bullet passes through an androids' face plate, ripping it off. It continued to walk.

"Shit," the vet says. Other men, one by one, pick up their weapons and the ones with long-range attack first. A few of the dodecahedron robots easily explode after a few shots. Within a few seconds, they reach the soldiers. Just then, they suddenly stop even while they are being attacked and destroyed. There is a small wave of laughter which is cut off when they activate their force shields, deflecting all projectiles.

"Run!" shouted the veteran who quickly turned and ran.

The force shields expand into giant globes of dark red energy. The globes explode. Many soldiers are caught off guard, but the explosions seem to do nothing. At first. Those who faced the blast suddenly collapse onto the ground and violently shake and spasm, their every muscle twitching rapidly. They cannot speak but let out gasps of air. They can't inhale, their faces turn blue, their eyes roll up. Sonic suddenly notices his own rings sharply decreasing from some after-effect of the blasts. "Sap energy!" Sonic recalls.

He tries to destroy a few but as he is almost out of rings he has to retreat out of range and replenish his rings at a New Mobian automatic dispensary. Sonic returns, seeing the androids coming into range.

He hears someone tell him, "You're lucky to survive their death blasts, Sonic. None of us can."

He turns to see the veteran who looks him in the eye and says, "We can't rest until they're all destroyed. I don't know why they called back their main force, but they must think just this will be enough to get rid of us. They might be right. Only the best warriors can survive this..."

The androids have gotten even closer. "Avoid those at all costs," the veteran says. He kneels and tries to take another shot, hitting one in its chest. There are a few sparks and then it falls down lifelessly. Another wave of death bombs charges over and down the hillside, and as the androids reach the bottom of the hill facing the New Mobians, the death bombs take stationary positions randomly around them. Everyone runs away from their blasts now, firing at them afterwards as the death bombs run out of energy to move, shield, or attack for a brief moment.

The androids attack by simply rotating their cannons inside their bodies. The beam they shoot is hard to notice, but it seems to bend light in the air, darkening it like an opaque shadow. This beam sweeps in both directions with a range 20x the size of an individual android. The beam hit a few men and without a word or twitch they instantly die and collapse.

Sonic still runs towards one android to attack it, but it quickly aimed its cannon at him and fired, and his rings ticked away by the 10s. He quickly backs away as a bullet plows through the robot. And then the androids started moving at twice their former speed while still walking like before, making them seem like they were gliding. Sonic can evade, but the androids mercilessly chase and kill group after group of running soldiers.

Greg comes running near Sonic and the veteran. "What do we do?! We're losing everyone we have!"

The veteran shushes him. "We'll survive. _We_ will, I mean. It's simple. Keep away, attack after they've attacked, then get back away. Be patient and we'll take them out."

Sonic watches as hundreds of men fall down as the life disappeared within them. Occasionally a robot would be destroyed. Occasionally he would find a nearby one which expired its energy, and destroy it himself before getting out of range.

"Did they take out all our fighters? Where's our anti-aircraft?!" a man shouts from down the other side of the hill. While Sonic and Greg look at him, the veteran stares at the sky. "We are fucked."

Sonic turns to see, flying below the low cloud ceiling a bunch of bombers followed by fighters which then dove down towards them. "Take cover!" the veteran shouts, and runs and jumps behind a boulder. Sonic watches Greg who immediately follows suit. Sonic runs back into the stream bed and lies against the bank as heavy machine gun fire rains down all around him. A second after that stops, he looks through the trees and sees the cargo bay open on the bombers.

.

He runs out of the stream as the bombs land and explode everywhere. Sonic runs away from the bombs, the robot death bombs and the death androids. The soldiers try to do the same, frantically looking for places to hide, and many are killed by one of the three deadly threats. The robots and androids close in with only a few hundred soldiers left alive. Then the bullets come down in a torrent again from the other direction as the fighters dive in for certain kills and peel out. Sonic hides in another thicket just as the bombs finally stop. He turns and sees in the distance the veteran sniping some of the fighters and even a few bombers out of the sky.

Sonic must avoid and destroy about 20 robots and 10 androids while avoiding the bullet rains, before he finally gets some peace.

.

_[Warning: Disturbing material ahead.]_

"Auuugh!" Greg groans, then coughs out something wet. Sonic zips through the crowds of soldiers, running medics, and the many casualties thrown about following his voice. He's lying against a bullet-shattered rock with a medic wrapping gauze around his calf-less left leg. His lower body is charred red to black with half of his tail blown off. He winces and clutches his bloody, bandage-wrapped chest against throbs of pain. The medic finishes his work and immediately runs away. Sonic watches him sprint to a soldier nearby who's knocked out and bleeding.

"Sonic..." Sonic looks at Greg, who bears a tortured expression, filled with fear and pain. But somehow, his tear-filled eyes with their pinpoint pupils relaxed when seeing Sonic. "I'm scared... I'm dying... Just when we won, too..." His face starts getting pale. Alarmed, Sonic hurries up to him and holds onto his bruised soldiers. "You can survive, Greg. Stop talking..." Greg seems to stop, but he slowly raises his right hand and pushes Sonic's right arm off of his shoulder. Greg's hand then drops, tugging his body over, and his movements slow down. Sonic gently lifts away his other arm. Staring at the ground with drooping eyelids, Greg says to Sonic, "I'm glad I could see amazing you are... and fight with you... to protect... Mobius..."

Without warning, his eyes shoot open, his body convulses and throws him off the rock with a scream of intense pain. Sonic catches him as he falls forward, when Greg sharply inhales while twitching. Sonic could only stare at the back of Greg's furry brown head, feeling his heart violently thump through his quivering body. What should he do?! Images of Mechanix the hedgehog flashed into Sonic's mind before he realized Greg was perfectly still. Greg then heaved out a dark chunk of blood from his throat, going limp as he drew out his last breath. Sonic was bloody, holding a fresh corpse of a young boy. Who admired him. Sonic didn't really think but carefully pulled his body back to the rock and laid him there. He quickly lowered his eyelids and immediately walks away. He keeps his eyes from blinking, and knowing for a second the abyssal darkness reaching out to eat him whole.

.

The wind answered with a howl and the storm responded with a crack of thunder. Sonic need not look far above the hills to see the tremendous wall of a rotating supercell looming ominously close above them all. He then heard the scratch of white noise followed by jargon calls behind him. He turns and walks closer to see a few radio operators attentively watched by a group of officers. There seems to be a brief exchange of coded information which is then quickly parsed and talked about by the officers. An eagle points at a map at a few places and after some quick affirmations, they disperse. They then call forward their platoons and companies, and a general order is issued for the majority of troops to return to base. An elite company is chosen to continue to advance, to be reinforced later. The remaining forces are to recover as many casualties as possible.

The eagle shouts out to his troops, "Get going! March, march! Stop lazing about you cretins!" His soldiers ignored him as they were already climbing the hills. Some pick up ammo from fallen comrades but stop for a small moment there. Sonic catches up to the front, where the sniper vet was leading. As they reach the hilltop once again, they stop to see that endless, barren plain. Now, there was nobody. They left great tracks of mud that veered off from the great mass. In the distance, there were glints of lights moving away.

The wall of the storm hovered past as they climbed down the war-torn slope. Out of nowhere, wind and rain blasted into them and continued in gusts and waves. The eagle hollers, "Keep marching! No storm can stop us now!"

Sonic looks around him as they wade through the mud, metal scraps, and guts. There are less than a hundred soldiers now. Most of them are older, although there are a few sharp younger ones. But all of them are expressionless, gazing at the horizon or at the ground. Nobody says anything as they pick up one foot after another.

Sonic slows down his pace until he comes back to the eagle officer. He asks, "How much farther is their empire?"

He responds, "5 miles. There's a small town which we will recon and then fortify until further orders from General Tails."

Sonic asks, "Wasn't Tails fighting? Where did he go?"

The eagle looks ahead, "He was called by the Council of City-States. They're questioning him as he refuses to decrease the offensive. They called him 'power-mad'. Ha. They'll shut up when they hear about our victory."

Sonic thinks, victory? He doesn't say anything, noticing the officer curse under his breath. He leaves him alone.

A man suddenly points and yells, "Over there! A funnel cloud!"

Everyone suddenly looks, and indeed, far in the distance a twirling bulge of cloud pulls itself down towards the ground. Dust whirled about as the cloud attached to the ground and began spinning faster. "Another one! And there's another one! Oh god!"

Funnels are appearing everywhere all around the great field. The sky leaks black pillars of death ripping the earth out of itself. They all stop moving when the tornado before them rapidly grows in width and ferocity. The cloud mass seemed to be leaning its giant shoulder on the ground. "They're everywhere. We're surrounded!"

A young beagle spoke out, "This is insane! We need to go back. We'll be safer-"

The eagle quickly turned, walked up to him and smacked him across the face, "How many people died so we can walk on this very field? Did you forget?!"

The beagle turns back his head and continues, "We didn't do shit, you maniac! The echidnas predicted the tornados and ran away! Are you suicidal?!" Then the officer shot him in the head. The beagle's body falls back flat into the mud, his blood mixed in with all the rest.

The eagle turns with his gun at the soldiers, who tensely watch him, "Forward march!" The soldiers are still, and he then fires into the sky. "THAT'S AN ORDER!"

"Yessir!" they yelp, although again, the vets never stopped marching.

"And you Sonic..." the officer starts, aiming the gun at him. Sonic backs away as the officer walks forward. "That includes you. But you'll be in front. You are only allowed to kill attacking enemies. If you try to run, I'll kill you. Is that understood?"

Sonic pauses. "Got it," he says, and then sprints into the crowd of soldiers and out ahead of them all. "Fucking traitor!" the eagle screams out, missing his individual shots before he bellows at the others to shoot. As Sonic's speed carries him away, he notices how nobody else fired at him.

.

There is nothing but the constant roar of the tornado winds. As he runs forward, he sees a few twisters starting to die, bending and skating around like ropes flung in the air, only as more start to form. The larger ones decompose into multiple tornados spinning around together. The mature tornados last the longest and soon take up the most space. Sonic looks ahead of him to see the largest, a mile-wide spinning cylinder of dirt and wind, lumbering straight towards him. Every boulder and group of trees is plucked out of gravity as entire hills are absorbed into its shadows.

Sonic runs at it. Jets of wind pull him faster towards the vortex and his traction starts slipping away. Up close, it is a black wall of pure force, stretching from side to side as far as Sonic could see. He could hardly hear the trees being uprooted and snapped apart under the mighty din of the berzerk winds.

Before he braves the wall itself, he is picked off the ground and thrown into the swirling current. He spins around the tornado's massive circumference in dizzingly little time. The updraft pulls him away from the ground as other projectiles are thrown past him. _If he is Super Sonic, he can move in slight budges out of the way. If he can't, he must spindash through the flying hazards that will otherwise crush him to death instantly._

After a harrowing few minutes, Sonic is ejected out near the top of the tornado at very high speeds, hurtling under the green clouds still exploding with purple lightning. Earth and sky fly by in a blur and just as gravity remembers to pull him downwards he passes out of the storm. Flying over forests and streams punctuated by dead mountains tearing out of chasms in the ground, he approaches a wide mesa. Sonic tucks into a ball upon landing on its sandy flat top, rolling for a minute or so before reaching a manageable speed.

.

Surprisingly, there is a field of grass not too far from there, which brings Sonic's attention to what looks like an echidna settlement nearby within some woods. He wonders if this is that small town and runs to it. It's a hamlet of sorts, situated around a small common plaza. A few lamps light up dirt roads leading out of its borders.

As he passes some trees onto a field into the village, he looks at the designs of the family houses. They are square and simple with triangular support beams and walls built of stones slathered with mud. They have curved wooden roofs and oval glass windows with shutters. Some are painted single plain colors, while others interestingly use two-tone vertical gradients. He walks through an alley, coming to a paved street between houses. It's lit by street lamps but is immediately lit further by windows and doors opening. Echidnas stare at him and a hubbub commences, following him until he stops to look back at them. An echidna lady gasps.

All of a sudden they start talking to him. "What are you doing here?" "How did you get here?!" "Are you lost?" "Don't hurt us!"

Sonic answers everyone, "I'm just passing by peacefully. I don't mean any harm."

"Bullshit!" A mustachioed man says, stepping out of his house with cane in hand. "He's a spy! Don't trust a word he says!"

"I'm not a spy," Sonic says, "I'm not part of the New Mobian army..."

"Ha!" The man spouts, walking in Sonic's way, "The only ones who call you barbarians 'New' are yourselves! This is a decoy to distract the empire from your pitiful resistance!"

Sonic looks him in the eye. "Let me through."

A woman agrees, "Let him be! We're killing enough of his kind as it is!"

The man shouts back, "What did you say?! Damn it woman, don't you care about your own children?! I certainly do and I won't let my town be touched by even one animal like this one."

She shouts back, "You brainless oaf, you start a fight and it won't end here! Anyway, he has a right to travel freely!"

An old man growls as he walks out of another house, "Rights don't exist, foolish child! There is only power, and privileges temporarily given to those without it. He has nothing!"

A smaller man exits a house and walks up to Sonic directly, saying, "Listen. If you want to stay, you can stay at my house."

The angry man says, "What madness! You spit on the law of Zexagalaxius! We should hang all of you!"

The friendly guy looks at him straight and says, "Do you think we're scared of you?"

Sonic tries to walk around as they're distracted, "I'll just keep going..."

A younger woman asked him, "Where? You're not an echidna. You aren't free anywhere in this empire. You're risking your life even just being here."

Sonic looks at her, and then everyone, and says, "I'm going to the capital of your empire. I'm going to meet with your leaders and stop this war."

There was a wave of sudden laughter, but many were speechless. A teen guy blurts out, "Nexus?! To meet... to _stop_ the Zexesh? You can't be serious!"

Sonic asks him, "Where is it from here? Still in this direction?" He points north-northwest. The youth slowly nods and says, "You won't make it. They'll find you out and hunt you down no matter where you are. The Zexesh are holy... for someone like _you_ to even see them..."

The mustachioed man walks up, pointing with his cane. "He just said it himself, he's a terrorist! Like this fellow I thought I knew over here." The hospitable guy rolls his eyes. The man continues. "There's no time to waste. Let's lock them both up."

The other guy walks up to the man, saying, "Let's lock up everyone that doesn't agree with you, woohoo! Kill the dissenters and unenthusiastic alike! Sew our mouths shut, bend our arms backwards, scoop out our eyes and brains! Man, how scared can you get, you old fart? Go to bed!"

The man turns around and yells back, "You're a blasphemer and a traitor. We're at war and you want to break our resolve with naive compassion! I should sew your mouth shut!"

Sonic just walks away. "Stop him, dammit!" is shouted, but the villagers just talk to each other and watch him go.

.

Sonic passes through a few more blocks, avoiding the other echidnas walking around at night. He ignores the many stares and whispers, simply taking in the modest architecture and bright but soft aesthetic of the town. He crosses a playground through some trees into the center plaza. The ground is mostly cobblestone with benches and a few statues. Although hard to notice before, in this space Sonic sees long black stones jutting out from the ground, and there's a thin fissure in the very middle.

As Sonic walks over it, he notices a clear view of the horizon and slightly right of where he was heading is a wide flattened ball of light, changing colors and shining over the distant clouds and even the stars. Then Sonic realizes it's light pollution, from a very large city from the looks of it. He then looks back ahead, on the cement pavement that carries him towards the other side of the village under the soft light of flickering gas lamps. He sees an echidna man standing ahead under a light, bearing a gray military uniform. Sonic comes close and they face each other.

The echidna speaks first. "I can see the blood of your ancestors, from whom you inherited the death tumble and the determination of the primordial fight. You must be the warrior whom the barbarians call 'Sonic'."

"Who are you?" Sonic asks.

"I am another soldier you will fight and defeat. There is no reason to know a corpse's name," he says bluntly without moving.

"Then why fight?"

"It's my orders. If I disobey them, I die. I have no choice. I must die for duty."

"I'm not going to kill you..." Sonic says dismissively.

"No, you might not. But if I fail and still live, I will still be killed. I will be tortured to death. For having this Shard, the torture will last 10 years. I will fight you at full strength and you must kill me completely..." he says with full composure.

Sonic is disturbed. "I don't _want_ to fight you. We're not fighting now are we? Listen, if everything is going to kill you, why not fight for your own life? Fuck your orders, why should you do anything for someone who says they'll kill you?"

The guy doesn't miss a beat. "I would be a traitor, and everyone I ever knew would be killed for having supported a traitor. No, I don't want my friends to die. I will die." He starts to adopt a fighting position.

Sonic sighs and says, "Then do it. Attack! Or what? You just going to do people ordered you to do?"

The echidna pauses. "That's what Salana said, too..."

"Salana?" Sonic asks, recalling the name but not the face.

The man stands normally, breathes out, and looks over at the glow on the horizon. "I overheard that you intend to confront the Zexesh. No matter how courageous or powerful you are, you will not succeed alone."

"What's this, all of a sudden?" Sonic asks.

"I... it's something I've been thinking about... based on our history. Both of our peoples' history. Those that sought peace were always attacked because the others knew only war and the ideals that repeated war. We are taught that we are completely different so we must never ever think we're the same, but we really are the same in all but physical form. In every era since time began, the lovers and the idealists who knew this were branded 'evil' and killed mercilessly. Even right now, there are real people, both Zexakal and Mobirek, who seek each other for building peace while everybody else wants to kill each other in flames screaming in fear nothing but lies."

Sonic didn't know how to respond, so the echidna continued, "I'm too scared to admit I believe in love and peace, but I can kill and obey no longer. You are the absolute greatest enemy, but you are just. It is just that which is changing my mind. I am shy of facing the great walls of bloodthirsty civilization, and yet you fearlessly attack it... and succeed. You are a torch in the darkness and I was just a hopeless, drifting ember. But no longer." He then stops, yanks his weapons out and then throws them far away, then tears off his armor and uniform.

In his civilian underclothing he picks up his sword again. "There is only one fight. The fight between the ones who want control and the ones who don't. I know that now... And I'm going to choose the one that protects real people rather than dead ideas."

He points at the light. "You must know what you shall face ahead. While the Zexakal military is very powerful, it is not as efficient and deadly as the Nexus guardian force of the Zexesh. I assure you that someone has alerted them about you and they are already planning a decisive response. Even if you are _invincible_, the _savior_ of your world and the _destroyer_ of _mine_, you will surely be annihilated within Nexus, if not even sooner. You must find help from those who want peace within. They are your key to the Zexesh."

Sonic smirks, "I didn't think it'd be that easy. Thanks. Hey anyway, what's your name?" The echidna smiles. "I'm Jeir."

He walks towards Sonic with his hand out. Sonic grabs and shakes it. They part hands and Jeir gives a laugh. "Really, I'm too scared to fight a monster like you. You're stronger than I can even comprehend. You have something extraordinary within you... or around you, or something. I'm not going to risk my life on a battle so meaningless... to both of us!"

"Well, what are you going to do now?" Sonic asks.

"I'm sick of death and hearing of death. I'm going to stop either, wherever I can, right now," and he starts walking past Sonic.

As he passes him, Sonic turns and says, "You might have a harder mission than me. But I need to press on. Later, Jeir."

Jeir turns his head and says, "Yeah, not 'goodbye'! If you stay alive, whatever happens... I'll see you again."

They part ways and Sonic picks up his pace, running out of the town, out of trees, and across the mesa. He jumps off the flat edge, catches the slope and runs in the direction of the light bending over the planet's curve, Nexus.

.

[Act 7]

Sonic follows the footpath until it runs parallel to a small country road. He follows it with forest on the other side until it connects to another road surrounded by grassy hills. He follows that over a long distance, passing fields, meadows, farms, metal transmission towers, pipes and energy lines, and small homes – all of echidna design, explorations of simple geometric designs using hexagons and squares.

He passes a dodecahedron water tower with unrecognizable characters written upon it, and enters a small road town. As he passes the many buildings he comes to an intersection where other vehicles are stopped. People crossing the intersection start screaming and running away, although a few brandish clubs and hip-worn swords and immediately attack.

Sonic defeats them easily as they're 1 hit each, and carries on. After a short while he leaves the city.

.

The road expands to two-lanes, each both ways, cutting through a grove of trees. It rises over a large river on curved scaffolding. Across the river is ongoing construction of townhouses lying adjacent to a small wooden marina, bended into finely curved spaces and shapes. Beyond that the road lands into a marsh before returning within forestry.

He then runs up to a New Mobian toll booth, appropriated by the echidnas. A group of echidna soldiers stand guard, and upon seeing Sonic, whip up their New Mobian rifles or their Zexakal arm cannons and open fire. He breaks through their lines and rolls under the gate at the toll.

.

He enters another roadside town, only to find spikes laid across the road and soldiers lining the road waiting for him. After exiting the town, he hears an approaching siren. A police car driven by an echidna slowly comes up behind him wailing and its lights spinning. A megaphone blares, "Pull ov- I mean, stop right there, hedgehog! All Mobireks are to be arrested!"

Sonic yells back, "I don't know what a Mobirek is!"

"Of course not, scum! It's 'False Mobian' or whatever you call it! Now stop or I'll attack!"

Sonic suddenly turns back, running backwards, and says, "I'll do neither."

Sonic can jump onto the car as it comes at him, causing the driver to overreact and turn so sharply the car spins out. He can then target the remaining soldiers whom Sonic should be pretty comfortable with defeating now. Or he can simply jump over the car, the spike strip, and the soldiers, and just run onwards.

Right after the town is a suspension bridge spanning a large river, but Sonic is stopped again, this time with more police cars, spike strips and soldiers blocking his path.

.

After clearing the bridge, he goes through more towns and long stretches of the rural highway, passing other vehicles of both New and Old Mobian origin going both ways, all driven by echidnas. Every now and then while on the road, he may start getting chased by a few New Mobian police cars. However, their numbers increase each time and they soon include the smoother, faster echidna-designed ones.

He soon approaches foothills of a distant mountain range as the road turns away, so he turns onto the similarly hilly road away. He shortly enters an old mining town which has much shorter, junctioned roads. He jumps up the brick buildings and runs across the rooftops to avoid the narrow passages and any echidna noticing him. He passes through town and enters an industrial refinement area, there running across a few conveyor belts and up staircases and across scaffolding and down piles of coal.

Before exiting the town, he comes to the back of a small military base with a purple energy fence buzzing around it. He stops in front of it for a moment, seeing a dog walk out from behind a small building on the other side. He sees shadows of New Mobians walking in lines, their hands behind their back, their heads looking down. He sees them prodded from behind by echidnas with weapons!

If Sonic has enough rings, he can simply go Super and fly into the base right there, in which case skip this and the next paragraph. Otherwise, Sonic runs around the base until he finds the gate. He waits in a ditch, watching the road leading in, until he sees a large truck carrying a bed filled with crates and barrels stop. After it is checked by the guards on duty, the barrier is dispelled around the road and the truck starts entering. Sonic runs forward and passes through the gate before the entire truck enters, only to have the siren go off.

He is fired at from a nearby watch tower as soldiers flock out of their quarters all around him. Sonic attacks everyone he sees, sparing none in spinball blasts through ten men at a time. He breaks windows and smashes down doors, running up and down many of the buildings, but there is nothing and nobody in any so far. He then spots a large gymnasium and enters it, to find hundreds of New Mobians crowded together, with about as many swords and guns held over their heads. Fifty soldiers then ambush Sonic, but he defeats them all and the New Mobians suddenly charge the echidnas. Before the echidnas could respond, Sonic is already upon them. The chaos gives the hostages their advantage, letting Sonic advance. He knocks down a pair of double doors and clears out any of the soldiers still attacking him in the hallways, before he clears out the other side of the gym.

Sonic's now on the other side of the base where he was before. If Sonic decided to fly in right away, this is where he'll be first. He enters a two-story garage nearby. Inside is an echidna machine using Black Stones to multiply energy stored from solar panels, for the entire base's use. He spin dashes into it a few times, destroying it, leaving the base with no barriers and only emergency flood lights. After a short while, _(whether he entered the gym or not)_, the New Mobians run out of the gym, take guns and kill or capture any echidnas that remain. If Sonic stays, they'll thank him and start celebrating.

.

He continues, blasting through larger towns with more soldiers awaiting him. As he leaves the towns, he is chased by more police cars.

He enters a three-lane highway, witnessing roads in the process of being near-instantly paved by large machines rolling over everything in their way. He enters areas where the ground was split from the rising columns of land that bore the flashing lights and busy activity of the revived echidna civilization.

These towns have a variety of different forms, some purely geometric and others organic. Some are centered, others have grids, but most have unique organizations that play off the architecture and the land they reside on. Sonic enters tunnels that carry him into small towns in small caverns, sometimes connected underground, sometimes above, with fresh roads lying over old ones broken by the up-heaved land. The roads slowly fill with more and more vehicles, first of New Mobian origin, and then of echidna origin. Many steer out of the way to avoid Sonic, although a few civilians try to run him over.

Sonic sees not too far away a town glowing with fires under billowing clouds of smoke. Even from here, he hears the cries of hundreds of people superimposed over an almost steady rhythm of gunfire. He takes an exit, passing through a winding road in a dark forest with no street lights and enters the town limits.

Inside, he finds himself surrounded by echidnas. There are many with pieces of cloth wrapped around their face, holding broken poles, rocks and bottles with burning rags. Some break open the windows of shops and institutions, throwing the bottles in to explode into a wave of flame. Others march together, screaming slogans and songs with a triumphant tone. Some write with burning sticks or spray aerosol paint on walls in stylized characters. There is an extreme energy in the air which makes Sonic's fur stand on edge. He walks through the chaos, and in only a few moments he finds himself witnessing a large block of echidnas marching together. Many of them see Sonic, but none of them attack him.

He hears gunshots again. There's screams. He turns a corner, following the echoes, coming to another block facing off a separate block of echidnas, armed and armored, with shields, swords and guns. They walk steadily forward as some of them, mounted on robot beasts charge into the crowd, attacking anyone in their way. Canisters are thrown which eject a dense fog, which the non-soldiers brazenly stay within, resisting all attacks against themselves. Sonic is at awe, for a short moment, only to hear an echidna running from behind shouting something unintelligible which is carried down the block.

The front line, upon hearing the message, suddenly raise their guns and fire. The other echidnas scramble as their fellows drop to the cobblestone street. Some run away, some run straight into the soldiers. Sonic hesitates, but then moves to help, only to hear more gunshots coming from behind him. He turns, seeing normally dressed echidnas with guns firing back at the soldiers. He hears shots from above and sees them on the rooftops. They suddenly fill the air, with echidnas coming from every direction and location firing back at the soldiers, who so lined up fall easily. They make a retreat, and the others stop firing. It all happened within a few minutes.

.

"Hey, you," he hears from behind him. He quickly turns around.

A small group of echidnas with torn shirts and pants stand there, most of which are not paying attention to him. Some just run off and others run into the group to talk. The one talking to him, a female with rings piercing her short dreads, says, "Yeah, you."

"You're Sonic, right?" she asks.

Sonic asks quickly, "How'd you know that?"

"Don't be so alarmed. We're not going to hurt you. Actually, we need you. We need your help," she says.

A man standing next to her turns his head to Sonic, saying, "Yeah. Please, listen."

Sonic looks around. He says, "Right here? Right now?"

The man says, "Where else?"

The woman then says, "No, it's too loud out here. Let's go to the shop, it's not far."

The man says, "Alright, fine. But let's make this quick. We don't have time to spare."

A younger man butts in, who wasn't saying anything but was looking intently at Sonic. "Do you trust us?"

Sonic paused. He looked at all of them quickly, and thought for a moment. "Yeah. I do."

"Good," the woman replies. "Follow us."

They start running down a street as people run about all around them. Sonic is caught off guard at first, but quickly gets in pace. Another man, who was talking to someone else before, says to Sonic, "In case you haven't noticed, we're having a revolution right now."

Sonic sees a group of people taking off their clothes to his left. He turns to the man. "Yeah."

They enter a room with a door held open, filled with books, pamphlets, flags and many miscellaneous items, but it is completely empty. They enter a hallway into a room deeper inside with no doors, and stop.

The woman whips around and talks immediately, "Okay, we heard about you down the line from some allies in other towns. There's a wanted signal from the military who've caught wind of you devastating their army at the front and making trouble on your way here."

The man quickly adds, "They are quick. They'll know of you at Nexus within half an hour if not already. You're a huge threat, doing what you did. They'll throw almost everything they have at you."

The woman adds on that, "And hold back some for when you reach Nexus. They know your goal. They were told it."

Sonic asks, "If you're telling me all this, then..."

The man answers, "We're on your side. We want to end the eternal reign of the Zexesh. We want to kill the ghost of Zexa, who has been controlling our people from beyond the grave."

A teenage girl who was already in the room, sitting on the floor over a map, looks up over glasses. "Does he know about all that?"

Sonic responds, "I know a lot about your history. Your people have left a lot behind. I don't know about this Zexa, though. Is he related to... 'Zexakal'?"

The man looks at the woman. "This _will_ take time. If you think it's worth it, fine. But there's a revolution going on and I'm not going to sit back talking."

"I don't give a shit. Do what you want," she rejoins as he runs out of the room. The other man follows him.

Before they both leave, she answers, "Yes. Zexakal means Under Zexa. A long time ago, even for us Old Mobians, we were separated in many tribes across the land. We fought with your people, and the foxes, and many other species, vying for land and food. One man, or a bunch of men, was particularly violent. He survived so many battles that he gained followers who preached his worth and connection to the old gods to the tribes. Many then followed him, and the ones who didn't, who opposed him, were killed as an example. So he 'unified' the echidnas, and was _so_ great that everyone decided to relate themselves to him. There are so many stories about how he killed this many hedgehogs, or did that many miracles, that he became a god amongst men. 'Zexagalaxius'. He died, though."

"That's only where he started to live. The only ones left to lead the people were his priests who chanted his name, demanded his laws be kept. The people were rightly questioning this when their god was obviously dead, until one day the Black Stones rained down from a passing comet. They destroyed nearly everything, but some were drawn to them and took them. They gained new powers, and claimed that Zexagalaxius had come to pass on his right as leader. So a bunch of echidnas called themselves the Zexesh, or the Sons of Zexa. Some shared the Stones. Others used them for power. Some taught peace and fraternity, but most were warlords. Eventually, only the warlords remained."

"They all claimed to be the true heir, and leading their followers they fought each other for centuries, splitting away from each other, building new societies. It's funny, though. Nearly all the Zexesh were killed by their own followers, who then took up the mantle. Things get complicated from there, but the Zexesh continued to exist, and everyone worshiped Zexagalaxius, their one father who probably never existed."

"From the very beginning, they pushed the people to their will, never relenting. Even now, they demand that all echidnas help in restoring Zexa's control over the world, ignoring everything your civilization has accomplished since we were asleep. Here, however, we have awoken. We have fought back, and we are winning. But not for long."

"They will know about this very soon, and they will send their army here to kill us before the people rise up anywhere else. We're just one town, though. They will win. That's why we need your help."

"We need you to attack Nexus as fast as you can. We know you're very fast, perhaps, the fastest thing alive. We need you to distract them from us. Word of us will spread. Others like us will rise, and those that see us will awaken. We will reach Nexus, and we will topple their almighty defense from the inside out. So long as we're given the chance, we will take it."

The girl in the corner adds, "Before the laser attacks, we made contact with the New Mobians near here. Even if the attacks never happened, they told us your government was still planning on attacking us. Ours was doing the same. Both of ours are drafting, imprisoning dissidents, silencing dissent. Sending people like us to kill you, and people like you to kill us. If they never said the other side shot the lasers, nobody would have thought that either did. And we know neither did. While the world was staring at the ground, we were staring at the sky, watching Mechanix high above attacking something as small as a fly. You."

She continues, "You destroyed the Zexesh's artificial god-creation, Mechanix. To know that one god can die is more than enough to know the other can. So long as even information spreads of a different world, not just an alternative world, but the original world, the millenia spent protecting the myth of Zexa will topple like a sand castle against a tidal wave."

Sonic says, "So you said all that to tell me... to do what I was going to do, anyway?"

"No," the woman says, "I'm telling you that we will help you, if you help us. We can be allies."

Sonic thinks for a moment. "Alright. When I reach Nexus, where do I go?"

The girl says, "It'll be obvious. The entire megalopolis radiates from a single megaplex, and standing in the absolute center is the Infinity Tower, which is over ten times taller than any of the other buildings. The Zexesh of modern times have always resided there, looking over the entire world."

The woman then says, "I don't know how deep their defenses is, except for the Zexesh's elite protector force called the Crystal Guardians. You know about Black Shards, right?"

Sonic nods. She says, "Well, ever since the Black Emerald was created, there was great demand for more. Ever since the Event, though, it was forbidden to make anything as powerful ever again. That didn't stop people from trying to recreate the machine. They gather a whole lot of Stones and Shards and compress them to create a Black Crystal. It's illegal, of course, to have one; unless you're a Crystal Guardian, above the law, given permission and able to destroy anything threatening the Zexesh."

"So I'll have to fight them," Sonic figures. "Yep," she responds.

"What's the Event, though?" Sonic asks.

The girl looks at the woman suddenly. She hesitates. "It... The Black Emerald was used... it... the Air... It's really complicated. It's not like learning our history will help you out, anyway."

"I guess you're right. Well, I shouldn't hang around then, if they're going to hunt us both down. I'll leave now." He walks away.

"Wait!" the quiet guy suddenly shouts. Sonic turns. "Don't die, Sonic..."

Sonic stops. He looks at him. He says, "I'll never die, as long as there is justice to be done." and he leaves.

.

He exits the building, runs through the rushing, yelling crowds, back onto the road, back onto the highway. He follows it, this time without being pursued. He runs for a while. He enters and exits forests, mountains, canyons. The earth is increasingly torn from risen underworlds and laser-precise chasms. The night sky burns from red magma churning, freshly revealed to the air. Yet their warm glows are themselves overtaken by the distant, harsh white light, a semicircle of unreal brilliance that has been growing as Sonic approached its source. There were still much land in his way, but the light guided him, or rather, sucked him in.

After a short time in lowlands, passing marshes and rivers, he again returns to a coastline. The road takes him parallel to the waves breaking loudly behind tall, grassy dunes. In short time he finds the road suddenly surrounded by high-rise residential buildings, seasonal shops and amusement businesses. He is surrounded by echidnas and vehicles once again, more than ever before, and his presence instantly causes panic.

Before long, police cars screech around corners and zoom towards him. They take out their weapons and fire at him, while more officers ahead set up traps and ambushes to slow him down. But Sonic does not slow down. He plows through the obstacles which continuously build up in this very horizontal city. He then sees many more cops lying ahead of him, with weapons ready. He makes a sharp turn into the narrow backstreets, hopping fences and sprinting between the wooden pillars under beach houses.

He then finds himself running on a boardwalk crowded with minute establishments and recreating echidnas who scream and run as he passes by. Some of the police try to catch up to him on bicycles with tinny bells but fall behind in a second.

Sonic then spin attacks through a chain-link fence into a construction site, and stops instantly. He watches as fellow New Mobians, of all species, men and women, old and young, are held at gunpoint to do hard labor, sweating even in the middle of the night. He watches them carry masses larger than they are, tugging them up slopes and elevators, across scaffolding without sidebars. When they slow from exhaustion, they are jabbed in the back and shouted at.

.

Surely enough, an older man collapses, his weight hitting the dirt, a plume of which fills the air as everyone around him turn and stare.

"That's the last time!" a nearby guard shouts. He quickly grabs and pulls the man up, before throwing him against a pile of bricks.

Another guard shot into the air. "Get back to work, you curs!" The people, without a single shout, look alarmed but quickly face the ground and shuffle on.

Sonic then runs out. "Stop!" he shouts, only to be suddenly met by an onslaught of bullets. The New Mobians freeze, again, unsure of what to do, some stay still while staring at the ground.

The guard in question turns. He says, "Why?" and turns. Fires. Firing. Not stopping.

The bricks shatter into shards, blood spraying. Pieces of him fly out in chunks. As Sonic nears, the echidna turns, and the man, without a body, without a face, becomes a slump of stuff next to the bricks he lied on similarly destroyed. Sonic attacks the guard in one hit, and he falls.

Sonic then goes around the entire construction site, wall-jumping up the pylons and running across the girders, defeating every echidna he sees. The dumbfounded New Mobians soon explode into cheers and joy, and help him free the others. Sonic doesn't stop to hear their congratulations. He defeats every guard, and then runs on.

.

He is on the road only for a short while before 20 cop cars and even more automobiles chase him down. He dispatches any that come close, and leaves the city. He ducks off the road onto the beach.

He runs on the beach, dimly lit by a red moon now two-thirds through the sky. The ocean and sky merge into blackness, occasionally speckled with tiny sparkles and pinpricks of light, of boats and stars.

"Sonic," is heard.

He stops, and turns. He sees nobody. But again, the voice, "You've done well to get halfway through our empire unscathed. You've caused such a ruckus. You could have sneaked in, but no. Well now Nexus knows and they sent me."

"Whoever you are. Don't even tell me. I've gone through a lot worse than you could ever throw at me," Sonic responds.

A large wave crashes against the shore. Bodysurfing on the wake as it slides across the long stretch of sand is an echidna in a plain, dark wetsuit with a katana fastened tight to his hip. He walks towards Sonic.

"I won't tell you, then. I am nothing more than my post, a Crystal Guardian, protector of the essence of Zexakal civilization."

"So, you have a Black Crystal, then? It doesn't matter. You could have the Black _Emerald_, I'd still win. I suppose you and everyone else that'll fight me haven't experienced it yet, but I'm... invincible. I've fought a god, a world-creator, a world-_destroyer_, and won. I've had to save this world from the brink of total destruction countless times now. Even now, I can just transform into my Super self, and not a single attack you could make would affect me."

Sonic laughs a little. "Heh. But the only way for me to prove it, is to beat you. As if you'd give up, anyway. It's just... futile. This whole fight against you and your empire and your leaders. It's inevitable for me to win. It always has been. I've... never been defeated. I never can be."

The echidna spits. "You sound insane. Invincible? Nothing like that exists. Everything has a weak spot. Usually, it's their blind spot as well. Somewhere, underneath all of that "proof", all of that "victory", there is a vulnerability. If you don't have a scar, an old wound, you have a spot you don't pay attention to."

He withdraws his blade very slowly. "The moon is bloody and bright, but you are right, slightly. I can't see it, either. But I know you have one. I can sense it. It is growing. All it takes," the blade is fully removed, a sound of sharpness cuts through the night air as its tip slides off the very edge of the scabbard. "Is a single hit."

"Try it!" Sonic yells. "It'd be interesting, for once!"

.

[Act 7 Boss]

The Crystal Guardian will attack immediately. When he is near Sonic, he will attack like so:

- Make a very long horizontal cut that is several times the length of his sword.

- Make a rising vertical slash that causes the sand to explode upwards as well.

- Make a stab which phases in and out as it flies towards Sonic.

- Dash very quickly towards Sonic and try to pierce him in a single hit (or cut him otherwise).

If Sonic starts running in either direction on the beach, the Guardian will chase him, making dashes to close the distance. He will attack like before, but with less speed. He may also use two of his special attacks:

- He runs at an angle into the ocean, disappearing through the waves, until far in the distance a massive wave pushes all of the others aside. It crests and crashes downward directly onto Sonic, with the Guardian inside the wave stabbing downwards at him. Sonic must then run through the wave tunnel until he escapes it as the Guardian rapidly fires a bunch of attacks at him.

- He jumps into the air until he is silhouetted by the red moon. In a flash, Sonic is forced into Hyper as the Guardian uses a burst of Black Crystal power. He swings his blade, but 10 slices radiate out from it in every direction, their radius increasingly narrowed to him. He dashes towards Sonic for a final cut that will cause a large chunk of the sand to explode outwards.

16 hits will defeat him.

.

The Guardian falls on one knee. "You... you're not going to kill me? Do you not care about my honor?"

"Haven't I killed you already, then?" Sonic snaps back.

"You... bastard. You won't make it to the Zexesh. It'll only get harder from here!"

"You're only saying that 'cause I beat you, like I'll beat all of the other Guardians. If you care about 'honor' and want to die, there's a giant ocean for you to drown yourself in. I don't care. I'm out of here."

Before the Guardian can say a word, Sonic is already gone.

.

[Act 8]

He runs back onto the road, which shortly merges onto a highway. It is the widest one yet, each side with four lanes, walls, sound barriers, long lines of tall lampposts and other highways occasionally passing above or below it. He is only on it for a short time before police cars come zooming behind him, firing at him immediately. He attacks them and dispatches them, only for more to be dispatched to attack him.

All the while, he closes in on the massive hemisphere of light that dispels the stars and the void between them in the sky. As he rounds a hill he finally sees his destination, the megalopolis of Nexus. Stretching from both sides of the horizon is naught but buildings. They are shaped as blocks, cones, cylinders, spirals, curving around and splashing into each other, constructing into solid forms in some areas while remaining part to the larger flow. They build like waves from the sides to massive heights near the center, constantly towering over itself and all of its natural surroundings. Even the pieces of splintered earth standing from the abyss from which it emerged seem minuscule in comparison. It was fantastic, unreal, at the same scale of the Eraser Egg, the size of a cumulonimbus stretching out of sight. In the very center of it all was the landmark that defined the entire civilization, a supertower almost ten times taller than any of the others. Far above the clouds, there was some spherical-like mass which only had its bottom surface lit by the billions of lights from the futuristic city. A cone of shadow stretched out above it, a small circular pond of true sky cut sharply into the ocean of light. Sonic presumed it as the Infinity Tower.

Despite its immense size which had now become visible to him, or perhaps because of it, Sonic was still over a hundred miles away. The highway he ran on curved around the landscape which seemed childlike relative to Nexus, attaching itself to smaller cities ripped through the surface. Sonic noticed that they all had similar Zexakal designs, and that the New Mobian cities he had passed earlier were completely missing.

.

Just as he notices this, the very highway he is on transforms shape and design. The straight lines and rectangular shapes gave way to oscillating and curved forms, reinforcing themselves through rhythm rather than uniformity. The lights were not a pale yellow but switched between a light green and blue, pulsing down horizontal light strips in the walls of the road and floating above them. The road itself detached from the ground, floating by Black Stone powered devices. Other highways merged and intersected this one seamlessly, different routes marked by different colors flowing effortlessly through each other. Glowing signs flash in Zexakal text destinations, weather and traffic conditions, and Sonic soon finds himself caught in between the many exotic and varied shapes of Zexakal automobiles which veer out of his way.

Alerted to his presence, Zexakal police and military zoom down the highway, on its borders and through the traffic, as well as floating above him. They pose no threat to Sonic who can destroy each in only a few hits.

The road curves sharply, at an almost 45 degree angle to the ground, spiraling around under criss-crossing roads above and below him as he enters a more modern Zexakal city. It is marked by a streamlined style, with many roads existing above ground-level and different colored lights moving in all directions on all objects. There is a constant din of noise from all sources natural and artificial even at this time of night.

Halfway through this city, there is a sudden klaxon let piercing through the air. The colors on the road suddenly become single, and all pulsate through darkness at once. All vehicles quickly abandon the highway as tens of law enforcers appear in rapidly moving automobiles to stop Sonic. Floating aircraft with heavy weaponry armed at its sides let loose a barrage of matter and energy projectiles which tear through the road but leave no mark on the faster Sonic who easily ducks between its wave-like changes of direction over his immediate area. Sonic can take this one out either by transforming into Super or waiting until smaller aircraft come to attack as the larger one reloads its ammunition, and using them as leverage to attack. After 4 hits, it will lose power and crash into the road, but Sonic is still hounded down.

Exiting the city, Sonic can take exits onto other highways to temporarily avoid the constant targeting of the Zexakal defense forces. As he gets closer to Nexus, the roads will have more monitors displaying advertisements and state propaganda, most of which seem to concern the war effort against "False" Mobius. They are colorful and animated, quite distracting from the road itself, although it seems that none of the automobile passengers need to actually drive their machines.

.

Of course, the road he's on will eventually change to alerted status, the road clearing of civilians as military forces fill the carved sides. In addition to the smaller cars and the smaller and larger aircraft he has since encountered, he is also now targeted by large tank-like vehicles with a wealth of rapid-fire guns and explosive cannons. They also tend to be pregnant with single-manned vehicles which are the fastest so far but only have pulsed energy cannons. In addition, moderately-sized floating sphere robots enter the fray with continuous laser cannons.

Before long, he is also met by Black Shard soldiers, wielding a sword or gun to a certain degree of finesse, often forcing Sonic to battle them by boxing him in between massive automobiles or filling the road with long train-like storage vehicles which are filled with Zexakal soldiers and battle robots that attack him simultaneously.

.

Passing through a few more cities, the roads now seem more advanced than before, completely unhinged from the ground, they often move in loop-de-loops, corkscrews, and even upside-down. Roadblocks may be placed in front of him, or certain areas may be detonated which Sonic can simply jump over with proper timing. Highways may become multi-layered, or may change shape to accommodate more traffic, such as internal tubes or multiple surfaces of an elongated polygon. The rates of speed were so high in these areas that the Black Stone-powered "artificial gravity" or Black Stone-to-Black Stone attraction (which didn't apply to Sonic) seemed somewhat superfluous.

Another addition to his pursuers are robots powered by Black Shards, often moving up to Sonic's speed in aerodynamic forms before transforming briefly into battle-ready forms that make a few rapid projectile or melee attacks before transforming back into transportation mode.

.

At this point, Nexus seems directly in front of him, but by the speed and size of natural landscapes passing him to the side, Sonic realizes it is only an illusion from its size which seems to grow exponentially before him. It is hard to tell, as the ground around him is mostly flat except for other highways, power lines and pipes, all lit by lights in succession or in continuous form, all pulsing towards the one singular destination of the massive city of light and shape. The Infinity Tower is still visible above all else. However, night has long since disappeared into the eternal day of the hypercity.

On the screens around the road, every image is now replaced with Sonic's face, surrounded by Zexakal text which seems to define who he is. Now, the highway itself attacks him. Metal turrets pop out of holes in the walls and send out strings of energy projectiles at his direction. Some holes instead bare energy bulbs which connect with others to form an energy barrier on a plane that Sonic must navigate around in quick time. As if that's not enough, the closer Sonic gets, the more defense towers seem to rotate and target him from the flat landscape, firing large, powerful blasts at where they predict he will be.

.

True Nexus is still quite a way ahead of him, but Sonic takes an off-ramp into a heavy industrial area on its outskirts with more narrow roads to keep the heat off of him. Indeed, only robots come after him through this area devoid of artistic development, consisting solely of lattices, visible walkways, ladders, straight lines, blunt planes and discontinuous shapes, which still had some aesthetic quality by the tiny red, yellow, blue lights giving it all a geometrically expressionist form. He runs up angled slopes into narrow passageways, through chutes and pipes, wall-jumping up a few narrow vertical passageways (which he hasn't done in quite a while) until he finds himself running on top of a pipeline that leads out into a grassy field. It enters into a tunnel that leads underground.

.

A large blast door shuts the tunnel around the pipe far ahead of Sonic. So he makes way onto the field, Nexus still quite some distance ahead of him, but closer than ever. Nobody is near him.

Breaking the silence, a floating monitor comes down from the sky far above him and angles itself at him, moving at his exact speed. An image flashes on the screen, revealing the face of a robotic eye, with multiple irises rotating around a central globe, slowly pulsating with a light of changing color. The monitor slowly revolves around Sonic. Sonic looks at it, turning his head, and it speaks without tone.

"You are Sonic. Correct?"

Sonic stared at it for a second. It looked back at him, with no change. He answers, "No."

"Confirmed." Its voice suddenly changes to something much rougher and dissonant. "I am Core. I do not err. Nothing can defeat me."

"Oh?" Sonic says. "We-"

"Yes." It cuts him off.

At this moment, Sonic realizes that he is running backwards and quickly jumps to the side as hard as he can. As he does, he ears a massive roar and burst and sees a light brighter than the city fill the ground all around him. He turns and sees a massive plume of dust with dirt and rocks still hurtling through the air. The ground is scorched black. He quickly comes up to speed, only to leap to the side again, avoiding another explosion. Looking forward, he sees its origin from a massive white energy beam about the width of the highway he was on earlier coming straight from the massive sphere far on top of the Infinity Tower. A small circular hole on it glowed brightly again.

Sonic, facing Nexus and running towards it, must time his jumps to avoid these laser beam attacks that come rapidly after each other. Only when the buildings of Nexus stand in the way of the beam does it stop firing. Sonic looks up at it, seeing it disappear under the massive forms of the Nexus buildings, which are so tiny compared to the buildings even farther inside. A final barrier stands in front of him, however: the very chasm from which Nexus was pulled out of. He climbs a large boulder and leaps, the red light of the hot magma below quite sharply reduced by the many steel pylons stretching between the city and the other side of the cliff. He hurtles through the air, seeing the tight roadways filled with people who turn, stare, point and scream at him from so far away.

He doesn't make it! He falls far short of the other side, falling through the pylons and scaffolds which zip by him. He tucks into a spinball but this only causes him to break through any he hits. The red light quickly glows brighter, and although the pools of magma are filled with pipes and pistons attached to geothermal energy converters, there is more than enough for him to fall in.

There is no recourse. Sonic must transform or die. So he does, and pulls himself out of his inertia just enough to fly through the vertical metallic spires above the molten rock. He sees before him an open passageway lined with pipes that leads into the underbelly of the city. He flies into it. It curves and wraps around unseen masses, opening into massive areas filled with vertical and horizontal constructions carrying weights within and carrying weights upon it. Navigating through these areas and other passageways with blasts of steam and moving machinery transferring energy all around, Sonic finds himself suddenly into a less industrial tube that is much more well lit.

.

It extends far into the distance in both directions, as Sonic looks both ways wondering where to go, lost. Suddenly, he hears a screeching beep and turns to see seven bright lamps shining in his face. He moves up just enough to avoid the train from splattering him. Seeing a chance for direction, he lands on its upper side as the neon lights on the walls blur by at superfast speeds comparable to him. For a moment, Sonic takes a breath.

He hears something metal get ripped off hinges in a single slam before clattering against the walls and quickly disappearing far away. He turns to the sound, seeing hands grip the side of the train before swinging the mass on top of it. It's an echidna, one with dreads of random length, his body half-roboticized, wearing clothing and tattoos decorated with abstract shapes of clashing neon colors. He is followed by three lackeys with similar but less noticeable flair, although each bearing a robotic part of some sort.

"Do you want to die?" he asks.

"You're a Crystal Guardian, aren't you. Otherwise you'd be asking yourself that," Sonic rejoined.

"Watch what you fu-" one of the others started, but the apparent leader growled without turning, "Shut the fuck up!"

"Listen. Hedgehog. I know you killed my brother in arms, Shalot. I know you've blasted through everything in your way. I know you broke the front line. It makes me so angry, I want to cut your legs off and melt the skin off your bones!"

"No wonder they let you protect the Zexesh. You're such a tough guy." Sonic smirked.

"Say what you want, punk, but you ain't got long. You gonna die."

"I'm scared. I've _never_ been told that before! Why don't you just shut up and do it?"

The Guardian smiles. He pulls a baton from a loop in the back of his pants. He swings it down and a crackle of electricity sparks a steady plasma beam that hums and sizzles. "No, maybe I'll impale your throat, first!"

.

[Act 8 Boss]

The Guardian's three lackeys all have Black Shards. They move fairly quickly. One wields an iron pipe, another a metal chain, and the final one has brass knuckles. They attack whenever the Guardian is not attacking, often in pairs so that after one is repelled the other attacks. The last one will either wait, or especially as their team's health lowers, will fire small energy attacks. Occasionally, they will charge their weapon full of energy before attacking, such that upon missing they cause splash damage if Sonic is close enough. Each one takes 8 hits before collapsing.

The Guardian is fast enough that he leaves after-images as he dashes around and his sword leaves a tracer. There is little space to jump but he will still somersault over Sonic to catch him off guard. He only stops attacking when he is hit or when he charges an attack. His attacks are as follows:

- A successive chain of slashes.

- A stab which fires out a very fast beam of energy (Sonic must jump as soon as he sees it).

- Flipping and spinning through the air in a rapid fashion before somersaulting with the blade out, forming a wheel-shaped attack before slamming into the ground, making an explosion of energy.

- Disappearing, to appear elsewhere (usually behind Sonic).

- Especially as his health drains, he will do this successively. He appears, runs and attacks and disappears (fading out slowly) while he appears somewhere else to approach and attack, at a rapid rate.

- Slicing his sword through the air at a distance, sending out a wave of energy.

- If he aims upwards, he will then strike this wave in mid-air to redirect it, repeating this process to confuse Sonic as to where the wave will come from. If Sonic jumps too early, he will aim it at him.

- His special attack involves him falling back, charging his sword. At this point, all three of his lackeys will attack at once. Once he is finished, they fall back behind him as he lets loose a massive beam of energy that can only be avoided by falling through the gaps in the train cars.

He takes 20 hits before he falls on one knee and drops his sword off the side of the train.

.

"You... Aren't you going to kill me?" he asks.

"Why? Because 'Shalot' died? Last I saw him, he walked back into the ocean. I don't have time to kill you guys. If you want to die, do it yourself."

The Guardian says, "As soon as I recover... I'll get stronger. Faster. I'll find you and kill you."

Sonic responds, "Go ahead. I'll just defeat you again. Are you Crystal Guardians really the strongest Zexakal? Not a single one of you even compare to Mechanix."

The Guardian's eyes open, but he remains silent. "Then again," Sonic continued, "He was a hedgehog like me, after all."

"What!" the Guardian yelled, and then groaned, clutching his lungs. "If you know that... You must have really beat him..."

He stumbled to his feet, grimacing in pain. "Fuck. No wonder. ...no wonder! You're a fucking demon. You're a god-killer! Oh... ohhh, but now you'll fucking regret letting me stand."

"I honestly doubt that," Sonic replies.

"Mechanix was made... by the authority of the Zexesh... as the second-coming of Zexa. The Seven Lands all worshiped him the same even during the Last War. To kill him, to fucking kill him, you just brought the wrath of our entire civilization against you!"

He starts yelling rabidly, "You think it's fucking easy, huh?! You think we'll let you win, let you destroy everything?! Fuck you! Fuck you!"

Sonic yawns. He turns around as the Guardian continues to cuss at him. He walks to the front of the train, which finally exits the tunnel onto a bridge that spans the insides of a massive industrial space filled with machines, towers and scaffolds. He sees a cargo elevator zip up a central pylon and leaps towards it.

.

[Act 9]

As he lands, he takes a moment to look around him. There are massive industrial machines rolling up and down and across iron tracks laid into the earth, carrying all sorts of cargo from raw quarried material to construction materials to containers with unseen contents. Some do not use the tracks, instead lumbering about on massive legs over giant steel causeways. Bright flood lights create multiple shadows through the holes of the many straight metal beams holding up the various transportation, mining and manufacturing structures throughout the room. Sonic looks around several times, but he sees only a few people minuscule in comparison.

The elevator reaches the ceiling and entered a shaft with minimal lighting. He waited as it slowly climbed up the large cylinder. As light scans over the large crates, barrels and inactive equipment, Sonic briefly wonders why nothing had targeted him in the past few minutes.

A piercing screech of metal against metal filled the chamber and echoed up it to the top. Sonic felt himself lift up and quickly regained his balance as the elevator platform slowed to a stop. He looked for a way out. Finding a space in between the central column with the wheels on the inside, he jumps in.

Sonic wall-jumps up the inside of the column, and does so for quite a while. Eventually he reaches the top, where he leaps out into a large hallway filled with heavy carrier robots and smaller helper droids. They leave Sonic be as he runs past them, jumping over the many objects in his way. He sees a person-sized entrance and takes it. It is very narrow, and angled with a steep gradient. It is damp and as he climbs he increasingly smells a putrid thing.

Surely enough, the other side leads him onto a very narrow pathway parallel to a semi-solid, disgusting sludge of multiple ill-saturated colors and textures, sliding down the semicircular chamber through the darkness, lit by tiny electric torches. He runs through until he sees a circle of light coming from a small circular opening in the ceiling. He wall-jumps off the wall and enters it, wall-jumping up until he breaks through a manhole cover, finding himself on asphalt.

.

He sees his shadow before him and turns, jumping out of the way as a large truck honks and swerves out of the way. He walks to the pavement lying at the side, then noticing the many stares and fingers pointed at him. He takes a quick glance at his surroundings: cement, metal, and glass walls covered with paper and neon signs, dim street lamps and people in vehicles and on foot, dressed in graphically different but structurally similar clothing. He is surrounded by walls and accessories on the curb, looking up, he can see the walls expand far into the pseudo-daytime sky. Windows in random position are lit continuously or flicker in color and value to some unseen projector.

Before he can observe anymore, he hears the wails of a siren and turns to see the street filled with vehicles. Sonic starts running down the city streets and they chase relentlessly. Every intersection he is met by more attackers and pursuers, which he can barely break through before he is boxed in and crushed to death. He jumps on and over everything in his way, often short objects but sometimes through small parks and parking lots. He enters a narrow alleyway, only to find a dead end. As if expecting him, he is ambushed by muscle-set Zexakal with blunt weapons. He takes them out quickly as soldiers and officers fill the alley and fire at him, and wall-jumps up the cement walls.

.

He reaches the flat rooftop, and gains a new vista. It's not very impressive, as his view of the Infinity Tower is still almost completely blocked by much taller buildings standing in his way. He sees how the area he is in is poorly lit, while the taller buildings ahead become brighter and brighter with much more colorful and even animated lights.

So he runs towards the edge of the roof and leaps off to the next one. He hears some powerful, moving engine approach him and looks up to see the sky lined with flying vehicles. Within seconds, the ground around him is torn up with energy projectiles. Some of the vehicles hover over buildings ahead of him and drop ropes towards the rooftops which soldiers slide down on and land, firing from afar and attacking when he is close. He doesn't waste time fighting them and keeps moving on. Small flying robots catch up to him, firing projectiles and trying to attack him with swinging blades extended on three-jointed arms.

.

The buildings start rising above him, so Sonic has no choice but to jump down. He lands on a road suspended between the buildings, curving around organically yet in structured relations with the other floating roads. Yet he is hunted by every automobile he has yet met. Soldiers standing in the back of pick-up trucks fire beams and bullets at him. Occasionally, a small flying car surfs the air towards Sonic, with a Shard user on top, holding a rocket launcher or sniper rifle trying to snuff him out – or at least slow him down. When they run out of ammo, the car drives close for the Shard user to melee with medium-range weapons. As the roads loop and twirl and snake deeper into the city, Sonic finds the towering concrete walls increasingly covered with more and more unnecessary information.

He passes many static billboards, posters and draping banners, but he also passes large animated monitors, often with advertisements of some sort, but also containing information and even entertainment as if to distract him. Not flummoxed or vexed by the plentiful but rather weak resistance against him, he pays attention to the messages. They are often optimistic and bright, with affirmations of individual identity through customization and choice. Yet these messages are all the same; but this is hid underneath dense layers of shiny, pleasant, consonant and attractive details.

He notes there is a reoccurring theme of not just Zexakal cultural identity, constructed to fit individual narratives, but Zexakal cultural supremacy, enthusiastically affirming the policies of the Zexesh and the institutions of their society. The more messages Sonic sees, the more he realizes that the Zexesh/Zexakal-affirming messages are all there is; there are no alternatives. The only exception is New Mobius and its denizens, always branded as False, as heretical against their religion and dangerous to their culture and safety. The war is not even supported, it is assumed to be the only reasonable action against the non-Zexakal with pure ubiquity. Representations of them are always confined to caricatures, often as cartoons, with stereotypes of savagery, peculiar speaking habits and absurd customs. They are idiotic, disorganized, and sometimes pure evil. In more 'realistic' portrayals, often in commentary during the news, their society is analyzed as morally bankrupt and self-destructive, and their government as maniacal dictatorship.

Sonic generally finds himself amused at this blatant misrepresentation, at this ideology so sufficiently suffused throughout each and every example of visible speech and thought, until he catches a news show airing a recorded segment of conditions inside a New Mobian city. He sees people protesting, only to be broken up by police in heavy armor with helmets, batons and shields. The picture cuts to more of the same soldiers holding their guns at confused and scared civilians walking in straight lines. Then there are pictures of echidnas, walking in the same way, but behind chain-link fences from far away. There are distant shots of them working in fields and construction sites. At that moment Sonic remembers the old man and for a moment, he is indeed distracted.

He is suddenly blocked by three large battle robots, of similar design to the ones he fought before, except with sleeker designs and more dangerous-looking weaponry. Instead of fighting them, he jumps off the road, crashing through the window of a building.

.

He runs through it, a field of false rooms containing electronics and echidna workers under arrays of harshly bright lighting, expanding from side to side of the building interrupted only by a stairwell and bathroom. He breaks through the other side, flying through the air, until he crashes into another building. This one is even larger, saturated with echidnas walking to and fro from small stores of various goods laid into the walls with colorful lights and loud music. They are connected by walkways overlooking a massive empty inner space, occasionally filled with a monument, tree, or fountain. Sonic's interruption of the daily life sparked terror and panic into the civilian echidnas, but before long he reaches the other side, where a glass tunnel connects to yet another building. It is blocked by soldiers and robots with weapons at the ready, but Sonic needs only to spin dash to get through.

So Sonic travels through the indoor Nexus, with its thousands of glowing, flashing, hue-changing lights and ocean of sounds from everything washing over everything else. He moves from commercial to residential to academic to high-tech industrial, through low-class districts reflecting neglect to middle-class districts reflecting apathy to high-class districts reflecting vanity. Police robots and a few soldiers try chasing him down and blocking his way, but by changing floors through open areas Sonic gains temporary reprieves.

After causing havoc through an airport he runs down an open-air terminal to its very end, overlooking a new area of Nexus. He is so high up that the bottom of the towers are invisible through darkness despite the immense lighting. Yet, they stretch up just as far, their tops unable to be seen. There are no longer any roads, as traffic consists of flying vehicles moving in parallel lines on every axis. People walk on bridges which exist for every gap in almost regular intervals. There is so much noise and light and so little sense of orientation that Sonic has to stop, just for a moment, to keep his mind steady.

.

Just then, he sees from afar all of the monitors suddenly changing their images. In waves they are replaced with a single one, a shot of his face, with photos of him moving through the city and accompanying text. There is a particular string which is bold and brighter than the others. The borders flash red, and soon enough the flashing red dominates all of the other colors shining around. He also sees the flow of traffic dissipating to nothing. In seconds, clouds of defense forces of all types fly towards him from every direction at top speeds.

Sonic must continue. He can either jump off onto a nearby meridian, and platform with high speeds and fast timing across these, or he can simply transform and fly. Every now and then he comes to a horizontal dead end, to which he can wall-jump up narrow crevices or abandoned flying vehicles or simply fly upwards. Shard users with jetpacks chase him down, and now flying robots powered by Black Shards do the same. He is hunted with such ferocity that he is always surrounded by attackers and their attacks, who reinforce themselves quicker than he can defeat them. There are even automatic defense posts sticking out from buildings or simply floating about which add to the pressure.

.

Eventually, Sonic will eventually reach the top of these buildings. Every rooftop is covered with soldiers and robots and at least one Shard user, while the sky itself is filled with hovering, attacking aircraft. Again, Sonic leaps from roof to roof which are also covered with ventilation and power equipment as well as small structures that Sonic must platform on and around with dexterity and speed. A few even have gardens.

After some time, he again reaches the end of his trajectory. Curiously, he is free of pursuers as he stands before the central half of Nexus, which consists of a single massive structure standing even taller than any of the buildings around him presently. It is as if the buildings had grown together into a single, interlocking and continuous shape. The Infinity Tower is yet concealed by the gigantic wall that stood directly before him.

At this moment, a monitor attached to a small Black Stone-powered engine floats up from the crevice between the many buildings and the one. Sonic watches it slowly putter through the air towards him, and looks around to see if he is being followed. For once, they have left him alone, but it is strange. He looks back at the flying TV, which seemed to move as if it deliberated its decision.

Finally, it comes to Sonic. Hovering before him, the screen flashes on. He sees an old echidna with purple skin and cyan markings, wearing an elaborate garment of many hand-crafted chains and necklaces with precious stones inlaid over multiple colorful silken robes. Displayed prominently on the outermost coat is an abstract symbol that is immediately familiar to Sonic as the common engraved pattern on Mechanix's body. There are others like him standing behind.

"You're the Zexesh," Sonic remarks.

"Observant. You are the god-killer. The enemy of our people," he replies coolly.

"My only enemies are you. I'll put an end to your diabolical reign over Mobius, end this war, and free your people from you."

"We know. Ambitious. Yet, stupid. If you kill us, our will remains, and shall always be followed. In so being, we would not be killed. The state continues."

Another adds, "Our predecessors have shaped society to need us. They are dependent, and will make others lead them. These others will do as we have done, for it is in their natural interest."

A third continues, "Without politics, we have employment. Without employment, we have rent. Without rent, we have religion. Without religion, we have violence. Without even one, the force of the others will fill the space that became."

The first finishes, "Your expression of justice is futile and immaterial. You have already failed."

Sonic responds, "Don't tell me your bullshit, you think I'll leave you alone after all this? You plan on enslaving all of New Mobius and killing anyone who fights back. You slaughter thousands with no basis but bigotry and exploitation. You imprison your own people in your authoritarian dogma! Once I depose and dispose of you and destroy your system, you won't come back metaphorically or otherwise."

There is a small wave of titters amongst the Zexesh. A different one says, "Destroy our system? Do you intend on blowing it up? You call us the villains, while desiring the destruction of our subjects' well-being and a transition to unbridled chaos and moral relativism."

"Enough," the first one demands, and the others fall silent. "Sonic, the god-killer, I admit your skill and indeed bravery at attempting to surmount the greatest civilization of Mobius. You pose no threat to our nation but you pose a threat to our lives. We will send our greatest protectors to stop you but I know it is fruitless. However."

He pulls out something from underneath his robes. Sonic gasps. "The Black Emerald!"

The other Zexesh smile but the first retains his composure. "I will show you directly how your efforts bare no meaning. I will insert the Black Emerald into the Zenith as my ancestors have done so long ago, summoning a New Chaos Meteor to irradiate the entirety of Mobius and extinguish all life and structure on its surface. I will activate the city barrier such that the only important part of this world is left untouched, our Nexus."

Sonic didn't know what to say. He highly suspected this was the same 'Event' which had forced the echidnas to burrow underground and build cities such as Ka'ralei. He then realized something, and in a surge of emotion shouted, "So you'll kill even your own people who don't live in Nexus?! Why?!"

The first says, "They mean nothing to me. Any echidna can procreate. Simply, I bore of this war against your people. It shall be ended quickly, such that we can rebuild the world in the image of Zexa after cleansing it of your defilements. Furthermore, it would force you to your word if you indeed kill us: to destroy Nexus which would have then entirely become your enemy. If you are successful, you will indeed find peace in your eternal solitude, however cloaked with blood. If you are not, then my people will rebuild and return to us and our ways as they have always done and always will do."

"You fucking bastard! You sick, cold-hearted mother fucker! I'll-" Sonic starts.

"Base. I plague myself no longer with your wrangled barks, wretched cur. I move now to complete my operation. Good-bye." The screen switches off, fading to black.

Before Sonic can respond, it turns back on, revealing the robotic eye of Core again. "Hello. You seem upset. Do you want to talk about it?" it asks, with no tone.

"Don't mock me!" He spin attacks the monitor and destroys it. "Damn computer..."

"Oh. I was expecting someone a little more fierce for a _god-killer_," a voice says from behind him.

He turns to see a female echidna with violet skin and alternately tight and loose clothing, floating in the air, holding two massive guns on both of her arms.

"Great. I don't have time for another one of you," Sonic says and starts running, but he is quickly stopped by an explosion blocking his path.

"Whoa, now. You sure are hasty. What's the rush?" she smiles knowingly.

Sonic glowers at her, but before he can make a move or say a word, he hears the sound of massive pieces of metal twisting on hinges and rolling on tracks. He turns his head, seeing the wall of the gigantic building ahead of him displace itself, with large circular portholes turning open revealing massive cannons that are drawn out. Eight portholes open around each large one, and around these eight more portholes opened. All of those mighty cannons aim and point at Sonic.

The Guardian also looks at it. "Damn. You must have really pissed off Core. That's _all_ of the cannons." She turns to Sonic. "Let me warn you now. Core is more dangerous and more protective of the Zexesh than any of us Crystal Guardians. If you could somehow beat me... well, you're asking for it, anyway."

"It's impressive, but it isn't intimidating at all. I don't know why any of you think you can compare yourselves to Mechanix," Sonic retorts.

The Guardian laughs. "Oh, man, nevermind, nevermind. Okay, enough. I'm, ha, I'm going to just kill you now. Prepare to die! Or something."

.

[Act 9 Boss]

The wall will immediately start firing massive beams of energy from the largest cannons and pulses emanate in cycles around it, with bullets shot from the circles around those. The energy may be blue, red, yellow, or white. Super Sonic is unaffected by white energy, but the other colors will produce familiar effects; namely, yellow as shock, red as sap and blue as slow. While the main beams reach Sonic the quickest, they are slowest at moving to catch up to him. The other cannons reach him slower but approximate his future position much better.

Sonic can run to the edge of the roof and jump to the next one, moving parallel to the wall's circumference. However, he will only avoid particular attacks and not being attacked in general.

Meanwhile, the Crystal Guardian will be endlessly attacking. Her attacks are:

- Firing large fireballs in one gun and then the other.

- Firing both guns with pulsating purple plasma beams that are aimed at Sonic's direction (although they never intersect).

- Turning a gun backwards and firing a quick blast that sends the Guardian rocketing to slam into Sonic. This might be also used to move quickly around.

- Firing small same-velocity bullets at and around Sonic from 5 to 20 times a second. The Guardian may move around to change the pattern.

- Firing large dumb and smart missiles at Sonic. She may fire small dumb missiles at a very high rate.

- Firing smaller guns which spin around, firing many small bullets in all directions (these can be destroyed if Sonic can hit them).

Sonic must navigate the battlefield while approaching the Guardian, and at high enough speeds hit her before she evades him. 10 hits defeats her.

.

She drops her guns, and hovers for a short moment before falling to the ground. The cannons on the wall stop for a moment. The Guardian tries to push herself back up, but her arms began trembling and she dropped back onto the gravel. She turned her head to look at Sonic, and says, "I figured this would happen when we started fighting. You can become invincible with the Chaos Emeralds, but that's really nothing compared to your battle experience. No, that's not it. Your power. Your willpower...?"

She pauses. "I wasn't even that hard for you, I could tell. It's indescribable... that force within you. It's transcendent, beyond the difficulties of the world. I've seen great power before, but I've never felt it like this..."

Sonic stared at her. "Well, thanks for the compliments, but I don't have time for it." He turns to move.

She laughs while saying, "Too bad you listened to me, anyway! Those were some precious seconds that I'll now throw in your face! Aha!"

.

As she says it, aircraft suddenly fill the sky and attack Sonic. Sonic turns to face the wall, only to see a massive beam right in front of him. He jumps out of the way just as it burns clean through the building tops. He suddenly finds himself surrounded by projectiles and without much recourse jumps off the building and transforms into Super Sonic.

.

[Act 10]

Attacked in all directions, Sonic weaves in and out of the many bullet patterns flying all around him, destroying any of the aircraft in his way as he approaches the wall. After a short but intense flight he'll become out of range for many of the cannons. He enters one.

Through the long tube he flies, until spotting glass on a stretch of the wall, breaking past it. He enters a narrow pathway, its dark walls covered with strings of pulsing energy-conveying conduits. He continues until it opens into a wider hallway. Behind the semi-transparent walls are spinning cylinders and shifting blocks, everything with a semi-reflective surface suffused in the glows of colorful lights embedded in other surfaces of the same type. As Sonic runs through this area, he hears from behind a humming, vibrating sound which quickly raises pitch and volume as its source catches up to Sonic.

Strange robots with sphere bodies, cone heads and two flat blades angled to each other, jutting out behind it like strange legs despite them flying above the ground. As they got closer to him, arcs of electricity sprung between them if they kept at the same distance. They take two hits each to be dispatched.

After this warm-up, this hallway opens up into the massive inner space of the one building. There are buildings hovering still in the air, some moving about slowly, with strange surfaces consisting of simple translucent tessellations translating and rotating over each other. The floor Sonic runs on, the roof of a building, disappears and he finds himself running on air. An electric road appears under his feet, curving through the air before stopping just as he starts running on the side of another building. Overhead there are long tubes filled with hue-changing light which fly by. Spinning cubes split apart spinning and reassemble. Soon enough, the "floor" falls behind him as the sky-road spins him in a loop before sending him running upside-down.

Large holograms in the 'sky' show Sonic's face and body, with a large amount of text presumably demanding cooperation in his capture or death.

Surely enough, he is soon surrounded by attackers. They come in vehicles or with jetpacks, surrounding him on all sides with fire and even throwing hazards in front of him to stop him. Even those from far away shoot at him.

As if that's not enough, the buildings around Sonic will move to isolate him on a single building, trap him between several or even crush him. Horizontal and vertical slices displace underneath him, adding to the chaos. Sonic must carefully platform between the gaps as well as wall-jump up them to keep his direction. Before reaching the edge of a surface he must jump to avoid the sky road, which would otherwise send him down a path away from the center.

If Sonic finds an entrance into a building, he may find a drop in the heat against him, but not always. Some are filled with people who run away from him, his pursuers relenting to prevent civilian casualties. In other empty ones he is attacked from both sides, sometimes with the floor splitting open before him. Others have much more conventional surfaces, static and metal, although they still reflect the high level of technological prowess the Zexakal have. These are filled with echidna soldiers, including a few Shard users, and have turrets in the walls and ceiling which fire at him. They then detach after Sonic passes them and chase him down on wheels. The hallways inside buildings require no platforming, although they may occasionally spin and turn wildly. In the internal spaces, however, there could be a variety of platforms that he must cross to get through.

After a while Sonic comes to the other side of the one building. In front of him is a transparent wall supported by an expressionist structure, behind which are what seems like 5 layers of shifting walls. Sonic turns around, only to see a hemisphere of attackers closing in. He runs to the edge of the platform he is on to jump off, but more platforms attach to it first. Anywhere he tries to go, more floor stands before him. Sonic is trapped!

.

The soldiers land and pile around him. They point their guns at him with angry scowls, some shouting threats and epithets. A few take out seemingly obsolete blades, hungrily thinking of a way to torture the god-killer.

An echidna drops between Sonic and the soldiers. He has short dreads and green skin, wearing a sleek black suit with thin, smooth armor pieces. He holds out his hand. "Stop, fools! You think you can so much as touch this criminal? Would you forfeit your lives so idiotically? Morons!" It seems to have stopped their advance, but they were still ranting amongst themselves. The echidna turns to face Sonic.

"I'll be able to kill him," he smirks.

"Another Crystal Guardian? You're the fourth one now. Do you really think you stand a chance? Give it up," Sonic replies.

"I am stronger than Shalot, Kirax, and Mila. You've got the force of a natural disaster, but your failed assumption is thinking we haven't suffered those before! What's more, you've disgraced our entire civilization, from our ancestors to our religion! You recklessly ravage our honor and leave a road of destruction behind you. You think we'll just let you go?! Fool!"

"Fine. Then attack me, all of you. I'll just smash you all to pieces and then, after that, defeat your leaders."

There were several gasps and curses, but the crowd did not lose its anger and starts stomping towards him.

Again the Guardian turns and holds out his hand with his ring and pinky tucked. The crowd stops completely and looks wide-eyed at him. "I order you dumb mother fuckers to stop right now. This is a battle for _us_!" They hesitate. "No, better yet, leave me! At once!" There is a collective shudder and after a few stunned seconds they turn and quickly flee.

He faces Sonic again. "I will give you this, hedgehog. You give your species and the False Mobians a single example of one who excels beyond their weaker capacities. You are a testament to the power of the individual." He holds out both his hands, palms facing up. "It's a shame we do not live in peaceful times." He raises his hands.

"You would have made the finest slave." He thrusts his hands to the side, and the floor beneath them flies away in pieces. They fall.

.

[Act 10 Boss]

Sonic falls back to the wall and spins forward just once, his legs thrusting out to the surface and he starts running down the wall which is always changing inside. The floating buildings pass by above him. The Guardian turns his body around to face him. They will go down for quite a while.

The Guardian moves around simply by tugging his body in one direction and he moves that way. He may occasionally tug it sharply, causing him to disintegrate into a ball of energy that at almost-light speeds moves to another point via floating invisible conduits.

He first attacks by throwing his arm forward, opening his fingers wide as his hand slaps against the air. Electricity moves out on a plane in perpendicular branching currents from the epicenter, a circle circumscribed with Zexakal characters and icons. Then energy gathers and is fired outwards. These are his projectile attacks:

- A yellow cylinder beam parallel to the 'floor'.

- A horizontal column of purple rings also parallel to the floor (Sonic must jump or fly through them if he cannot avoid them).

- Rapidly-fired rods of red and blue beams that he fires in intersecting waves.

- Sprays and bursts of green and orange pellets.

Sonic must run up past the attacks and hit him just once. However, he has defensive attacks too:

- He first puts his hands far in front, his palms facing him. A seal forms and he pulls it towards him, as a wall of energy appears behind Sonic, always a certain distance away from him regardless of speed.

- The Guardian then puts his hands by his waist, palms up, and above a hand another seal forms in the air. He pushes it upwards, and a virtual pulse becomes visible and rises. He stops, turns his hand and slaps it forward, and the pulse slides towards Sonic who must jump over it.

- After vaulting one, the Guardian is finished making another of a different height and sends that forward.

Occasionally, his hand will tremble as he lifts it for one of these three attacks and consequently the pulse will have its wire mesh faded and shaky in some places which Sonic can spin attack through.

If Sonic cannot hit him after a short period, the Guardian stops creating the obstacles and instead sways his hands in gentle curves. A virtual road appears underneath him, rising and dropping in gentle and sharp hills. He compresses his two hands together as light envelops them.

- After a short moment he throws his hands forward, sending out many flying virtual-robots that attempt to run into Sonic.

- He charges again, and maybe instead he fires a large ion beam at Sonic's position.

If he is not hit in a short time, he returns to the earlier hurdle-wave creation.

.

After being hit, he drops to the floor and stands still, letting Sonic run to him before pretending to surprise attack him. After Sonic jumps over him and he disappears behind his view, he instantly reappears right before Sonic again for another attack, and continues at this speed. His new attacks are:

- A weak or strong punch

- A sweeping low, high or jumping kick

- Might suddenly flash with energy when he appears, with his next strike carrying an explosive shock of transferred electricity (with the sound of thunder) that even has shock effect against Super Sonic.

- Might do nothing or jump simply straight up. If Sonic runs into him, he grabs Sonic and pushes him against the wall as they fall down, having a short sap effect against Super form.

He will stop after a certain number of attacks, unless he takes 3 hits in which case he stops immediately. He then jumps back up and hovers in the sky, firing his projectiles again.

After 8 hits, the battle seems to be done as the bottom of Nexus finally appears. The lights are quickly snuffed out around him from a hyper-stylistic neo-utopia into cold metal, pipes and visible machinery, sooty, dusty, oily and rusty. Sonic slows himself down and they both land on the actual ground, cracking concrete that was already cracked.

.

Sonic looks ahead and sees they landed in front of a wide entrance into the wall, illuminated by vertical strips of harshly bright fluorescent lights. At the other side was a massive circular steel blast door. The Guardian zipped over there, and yelled out, "You're not going to get through, damn it! Die, you bastard, die!"

The Guardian will now be surrounded by an octahedron of seals, constantly spinning around him. Electricity constantly arcs from the octahedron into the ceiling and floor.

- Turrets suddenly pop out of tubes in both surfaces and use their wheels to drive towards Sonic while firing all the while.

- Occasionally virtual-bots are sent,

- and occasionally the Guardian shoots one of his four types of projectiles at him.

- As Sonic gets closer, bolts of lightning will arc to Sonic's position just after a short charge from the octahedron.

- A virtual road replaces the solid ground, and it constantly moves itself away from the Guardian like a conveyor belt.

Once Sonic gets close enough, he must hit the Guardian's shell 4 times before it breaks. Thereafter, he must strike him directly. Sonic can get in 3 direct hits before he recovers his shield.

.

After another 8 hits, the Guardian collapses to his knees, his arms at his side. "You're too powerful... It's not possible."

Sonic walks forward. "I told you. Now open this door, or I'll do it myself."

"It's not over yet, foolish hedgehog! Ha _ha_!" He looks behind him, and Sonic turns to see soldiers crowding the entrance along with robots of all sorts and sizes, all aiming their weapons at Sonic.

"You can't go anywhere else. Did you forget about walls, hmm?! Ahaha (cough) ha..."

One of the soldiers, wearing large, burdensome, but shiny armor pretty easily, with long dreads adorned with rings and silk sleeves and dark red, almost burnt, skin majestically walks in. The other soldiers look at him with awe and joy. He comes up behind Sonic.

"...very impressive, I will admit. You are a radiant example of possibility to the lower types. You embody a spirit of unwavering individual and social justice. Your poverty of image only amplifies the inferno of power within you. I must say... very impressive, indeed."

"Why should I care what you think? Are you another Guardian wanting to lose?"

"I am a Crystal Guardian, yes. You should know what I think as it is the last thing you will know before I kill you here."

Sonic didn't even smirk. "You guys are just stupid."

The Guardian pulls out a massive broadsword glimmering with Black Stones from the scabbard on his wide back. "Insolence. Your reign of terror ends now!"

Just then, the ground moves extremely suddenly, throwing everyone to their feet. The ground shakes violently, with everything clattering as it bangs against each other. Sonic tries to put his hand on the ground but it shakes away under him. He hears yells and screams from the soldiers and turns his head, seeing chunks of material fall all around them. He sees a distant building oscillating so strongly that it cracks from its base and tips over. He looks at the other Guardian, whose sword was thrown a few meters away from him. The Guardian looked at him sternly before trying to get up, himself.

There is a loud crack, a snap like a thunderbolt but with the fading presence of an ocean wave. It is followed by rumbling, and Sonic turns to watch as the wall holding the door moves away from him. Rocks and boulders crumble and fall into the massive chasm that opens up before him. He uses the sides of his arms to crawl towards it. He turns back to see the Guardian crawling at a faster rate, his eyes set on him. Sonic keeps on crawling until he reaches the edge, looking over it and seeing darkness. He looks above, and sees a tiny line of light from the light-polluted sky. He is about to pull himself into the chasm when he feels his leg suddenly grabbed.

He turns and sees the first Guardian, tired and beaten, using his entire energy in firmly keeping him down. He is smiling.

"You're the fool. Do you think even an earthquake of this magnitude could stop me?" Sonic asks rhetorically.

He then transforms into Super Sonic, and the Guardian immediately withdraws his hand, screaming and blowing at it as if burnt. Super Sonic then pulls himself into the air and flies over and into the chasm. He is about to move up when he sees the light snuffed out as a solid ceiling of junk compressed to fit the narrow cliffs of the division slid down to crush him. So Sonic makes himself fly downwards, into the vast darkness ahead of him.

.

**Ominous Ore** [Act 1] (8/38)

Super Sonic sees red light glow far underneath him. It grows as he approaches, and the echoes of its popping bubbles and spewing jets, Sonic recognized it as magma. His eyes flit between both sides of the chasm which rush by him into the crushing ceiling above. He is pressed down closer and closer to the heat, unable to find any way out. Sonic's heart pounds. There are no holes nor cracks even up to the molten rock. He keeps looking at both sides, but there is nothing. He flies forward into the chasm, but there is no change. Sonic has little time left to think as the ceiling slides with its tremendous weight directly behind him. Sonic flies fast and deep into the hot goop, his speed significantly reduced by the semi-hardened viscosity.

Sonic flies through the magma but suddenly feels a powerful wave of the stuff behind him, pushing him rapidly forward as if a massive amount was just displaced. Sonic can barely gain control until he hears a large slam, feels the recoil as he hears solid rock explosively give way. And then Sonic feels cold, fresh air on his skin before opening his eyes. He is in free-fall alongside the spurting lava inside a cavern with a larger magma pool far below. He sees interlinked islands of cooled rock criss-crossing the pool over to a more narrow cavern in the distance. He lands on the closest solid platform.

He runs on whatever solid ground he can find, jumping between platforms, some of which sink under his weight into the magma. He crosses the pool rather easily, entering the cavern occasionally lit by lavafalls locked behind a mesh of stalactites and stalagmites. It opens into a massive but narrow split in the earth, with a lavafall directly in front, falling to a turbulent flow far below. He wall-jumps on what little safe rocks there are until he can enter another cavern.

He is immediately attacked by robotic beasts of all shapes, sizes and speeds. They fly, pounce and lounge at him with steel claws and fangs, and he destroys them.

He jumps off the stalagmites, into a vertical tunnel which he wall-jumps up until he breaks through a boulder in a new cavern, lit by a few clumsy fires. He sees marks in the walls, and turns to see them. Cave drawings of animals.

Sonic furrows his brow, turns. He sees the fires disappear like dispelled hallucinations, one by one. He sees something in the fast approaching darkness, large beings with terrible eyes of power. They are running towards him. Wasting no time, just as the last fire disappears, Sonic transforms, flooding the caverns with sudden, golden light.

He is attacked by ancient echidnas seemingly of a different species altogether. They bore massive bodies and arms, which came smashing down at Sonic. If he doesn't evade the attack, the power of the attack will be enough to push Sonic backwards. He beats his way through the horde towards what looks like the sun's light up ahead.

He exits the cavern, finding himself on a slope of a mountain overlooking a large valley filled with lush flora he's never seen before. The air is filled with sounds of many different animals, chirps, whistles, roars, screeches, and croaks. He then hears the growls and screams of the echidnas and turns around, seeing them charge at full speed to kill him. Sonic runs as a few throw spears crafted from bluntly shaved branches and sharpened arrowheads. Navigating the landscape and avoiding the predators, Sonic reaches the other side of the valley, which opens to a wide plain.

Far in the distance, Sonic sees a group of small buildings lying on the horizon. "What is going on here? Am I..." Sonic thinks. He runs to them.

They look at him curiously. They stop whatever they were doing and walk up to him. They speak in a very strange language with intonations he's never heard before. He looks around as they surround him, wearing only a few large pieces of rough clothing, holding simply designed wood tools.

Sonic then turns to see a tall, adult male echidna who strides forth with a completely different color, almost as if with pride. The crowd opens up and stares at him. He looks at Sonic.

"Qraj. Know mind, know tongue. Listen. Awaken."

Sonic looks around. He says, "...okay..."

"One day, five hundred movings. Meat, grain, wood, clay, fur, get, make, use, store. Stories come, go, become. People born, grow, live, pray, die. Bad. Good."

Sonic stopped listening and instead pays attention to distant trampling of the ground. "Unsame. Strange. Go." He runs to the side of the village and stops suddenly. Sonic sees a large dust cloud rising behind an approaching wave of creatures. Qraj shouts to the other villagers. They start hurrying around, rallying at that side of the huts with their simple weapons in hand.

Qraj says, "Help fight." Sonic, however, is suddenly confused to see that the attackers are hedgehogs! He looks at Qraj questioningly, who doesn't seem to notice. Sonic thinks for a moment, and then says out loud, "This is just a virtual reality program, isn't it? I know someone is controlling this thing! Come out with it!"

Qraj's head suddenly, coldly turns to Sonic, and says, "Oh, you caught me," in a voice Sonic recognizes.

"Core!"

.

Everything else suddenly freezes except for Sonic and Qraj, whose body pixellates and disintegrates into an anthropomorphic shape of chaotic static. Sonic immediately runs forward and tries to attack it. Core says, "Surprise?" Sonic then smiles and jumps to the side, avoiding Core's attack of an explosive blast that ripped open where he once was. He jumps to strike her next but she disappears. Sonic looks around but does not find her.

Instead, he hears her synthesized voice floating in the air, saying, "To assist in my executable functions, I have been given the ability to hate. I hate you, Sonic the god-killer. I have designed a map of strategies to make you experience maximum "suffering". As defined by the Zexesh, the first 'punishment' of any criminal is to "relive" the "Zexakal past" so as to "be fully aware of the context" You must "survive" this "re-education program" until the "contemporary period" to progress to the second 'punishment'. Yo-" "Shut up! Why don't you just kill me, you piece of scrap!"

Core pauses. "Death is too easy," she says and disappears, not responding again.

"Zexa! Help!"

Sonic turns around, seeing an echidna with an elongated head and golden skin walking away from a simple red echidna to the large gang of hedgehogs that have now reached the village. Most tuck into balls and tumble into the echidnas, cutting and piercing them with their sharp quills. One rolls up behind Zaga, untucks, leaps and screeches as it is about to pounce him. Zaga simply spins his leg around and swings it swiftly into the hedgehog's temple. It's sent flying, hurtling and rolling across the ground until inertia brings its body to rest.

"This is ridiculous," Sonic says. "I can't be wasting any time... how do I get out of here?!" He turns his head in several directions before simply running in a single direction. Within seconds, he turns his head and sees the village disappear behind him.

Turning his head again, he finds himself approaching a town, much larger and with more rigid structure. Sonic walks on the cobblestone, only to suddenly hear, "Sire!" He turns, seeing an echidna in robes and sandals running, shouting, "You have almost become late! Come with me to the prayer house!" Sonic watches him as he runs past, towards a white building with a tall spire where many echidnas are congregating. Another echidna, an older one, talks to him as he walks by. He says, "Zexagalaxius is not just one. He is all." A younger man walking behind him looks at him and says, "Like Zexagalaxius was all and was also Zexa, so are we ourselves but also Zexagalaxius."

Sonic stares at them. He then ran towards an alley out of the street when a man exits the side of a building. "Oh, but where are you going, friend?"

Aghast, Sonic backsteps and quickly blasts down the road, through byways until he reached the outside of the city again. He is surrounded by hard sand that stretched on for as far as he could see. The sky is a pure blue. Looking at it, however, Sonic suddenly notices that it is filled with large stars, despite not being night. He watches the stars grow larger, until he realizes they are growing too fast. He runs back inside the city, searching for the church, until he does and bursts through the door.

He is met with many bewildered stares, and then says to them, "From the sky-" before tremendous explosions and shockwaves sent everyone hurtling around the room. Sonic crawls out of the building to see the sky full of falling meteors, falling everywhere at once. He hears someone shout, "Zexa is returning! He is coming back for us from the heavens!"

"The Black Stones..." Sonic murmurs, before realizing he's in a simulation, and quickly turns and runs back out of the city. Just as rapidly as they came, the meteors stop falling. Sonic runs, but sees an echidna standing over a crater. He jumps in. Sonic stops for a moment and says, "What are you doing? Those things could kill you!" The echidna does not turn as it waves its hands in front of it. It responds, "It gives me power... by not being afraid of it... I am becoming like Zaga..."

Sonic smirks. "It is rather ingenious...!" He continues to run on.

The featureless landscape reveals another small town with a large fence, its central gate being guarded by two echidnas wearing bronze armor. "Traveler, you come to the domain of Zexesh, the very son of Zexa!"

Sonic turns away while saying, "Just an echidna with a single Black Stone. I guess that was rare at first."

"Do my ears deceive me? Heathen! Did you speak against the great master-lord?!" The two guards withdraw their swords.

Sonic just runs away. He soon sees the textureless ground become filled with verdant grass and brush. Even a few trees spring up from the former wasteland. Sonic keeps on running, eventually coming upon a hill overlooking a large city. It is centralized around a single tower. Sonic remarks, "This is awfully familiar..."

As he approaches the city he notices the technology has improved more than exponentially. There are many lampposts, unified architecture and even automatic traffic signs. More remarkably, along with the echidnas in stiff coats and demeanors, the sidewalks and roads are filled with automatons. They were mostly simple creatures with a simple range of activity with bodies that reflect such intentional design. Large robots carry large cargo, person-sized robots follow their masters, and smaller ones zip down streets looking for surfaces to clean and trash to pick up.

A portly man in a black suit catches Sonic's eye looking at them. He chortles, and says, "You must not be from around here, eh? These things are quite normal for us. Why, they are a testament to the New Spirit of our Great Age."

"The New Spirit?" Sonic asks.

"I suppose you know quite well of the old traditions, circumscribing the authority of the Old Zexesh, those Zexakal who took the Black Stones whenst first they landed and became gods amongst men."

Sonic makes quick glances around. He wonders if this conversation is worth it. "Certainly."

The man continues, "Well, not too long ago there were a group of intellectuals whose demand for their responsibility resulted in their sudden and brutal persecution. The Black Stones which had rained across the world were horded by the Old Zexesh so as to preserve their power. These intellectuals clamored amongst the people to take back the Black Stones and cast off the mental fetters of the ancients. And so it was done."

He opens his arms and points to various structures and devices around them. "With Black Stones as a common resource, our happiness was guaranteed, but further, they made great leaps and bounds in technology, science and commerce to boost our quality of life to such extraordinary levels. They easily became our new leaders. The New Zexesh. And under their guidance we reject the ancient ways in pursuit of growth! It is the New Spirit, so to say. It is why the old name of Zexaros has been replaced with that of _Nexus_."

Sonic, whose attention was elsewhere, suddenly looks back at the man. "Nexus? That's here?" He suddenly looks to the tower, which despite being miniscule in comparison to the real one, stood much taller than the 2-4 story buildings around him. He then realizes that right now, he is somewhere underneath the real Infinity Tower. He realizes that is where the real Zexesh are, the ones he must stop at all costs. He is recalling how the surface of Mobius looked when Mechanix was resurrecting Old Mobius when from the man he hears, "...Black Emerald."

Sonic then looks at him again, and asks, "What did you say?"

The man cocks an eyebrow and says, "I said, 'We have such a wealth of Black Stones here that the New Zexesh decreed 89% of the reserves to be carried to the ever-falling laboratory that revolves 'round the heavens (another testament to the New Spirit), so that they can be compressed evenly into a single object which they call the Black Emerald.'"

Sonic thinks to himself, "So the Black Emerald was the first to be created?"

"Wait, whatever, I don't have time for this!" Sonic suddenly shouts, surprising the man and people around him, and jets off to find an exit to the city.

Sonic makes his way through the streets, cutting a path through the crowds until he comes to the industrial area, with its tall smokestacks pumping soot into the sky. From behind a wooden fence he can see the long lines of laborers pushing coal in wheelbarrows, sweaty and grimy, while armed echidnas in tight uniforms patrol around them. Sonic is reminded again of the slave labor he witnessed in the real world. He turns, about to run, when he finds himself surrounded by echidnas in large black cloaks with hoods concealing their faces.

Before he can respond, one of them speaks, "This is how New Spirit works. Behind its 'egalitarianism', behind its 'intellectualism' and its 'growth', are these workers. They suffer much at these jobs. Even now they are being replaced with work dolls. Most of their brothers are in the slums, in the darkest alleys and corners breaking the law every day by stealing uneaten food from rubbish. Meanwhile, the upper city folk pride themselves on 'progress', most of them unaware of how it is even made. And oh, the New Zexesh, on top of it all, having masterfully created this web of illusions and usury!"

Sonic, realizing this must be another interactive history lesson, tries to escape without a sound, but the other echidnas have made a circle around him. He turns to the speaker, and rhetorically asks, "You prefer the Old Zexesh?"

"Indeed, for they preserved our holy ancestry with Zexa! All of our traditions were unique to each family, yet unified in their essential piety! Now! Alas, now, there are no traditions but only routines, customized to the interests of each individual, yet nearly identical to every other! It is disgusting to even consider these proponents of the New Spirit as my brothers, they pervert the Zexakal so much. But I know that they have been misled by false prophets, the New Zexesh, who must singularly be judged by the sword of Zexa!"

Sonic is tapping his foot. "Cool, cool. Can you let me go now?"

The echidnas wordlessly open a hole in their rows. The speaker says, "The Old Zexesh shall return, heed my words!"

Sonic is already gone. He follows the industrial area to its edge, crosses a few bridges over rivers and streams until he reaches the edge of the city. He stops for a moment, and shouts, "Core, this is really stupid! Are you even going to try and kill me?!"

Just as he says that, he hears feathers bristle in the air. He instinctively blinks and moves his head to the left as an arrow flies past him, firmly planting into the soft ground. He opens his eyes, just a split-second later, to be immersed in darkness. It is night. He turns around to the source of the arrow but sees nothing. Yet again, he hears the arrow first and leaps backwards, only to push himself forward just quick enough to avoid another arrow. Realizing his predicament, he turns away and runs as a sudden rain of arrows falls all around him. He realizes he is heading back to the virtual Nexus.

Upon entering the city, Sonic notices the activity is much lighter, consisting solely of small cleaning and light robots. He runs around but finds no one. He then hears quick shuffling of heavy robes, and runs up the side of a wall and leaps over a building onto the roof of the one across the road. "There they are!" Sonic says. "They did get it!" He says, seeing the Black Emerald in one of their hands.

Sonic then suddenly realizes, "Wait, I felt where the Black Emerald was. No, but I'm not in Hyper mode... No, now that I'm noticing it... I feel a tug from where these Black Stones are around me... When did this happen...?"

Sonic then notices the last person of their intimidating (taciturn?) group holding something else. He carries a cloth bag of a strange shape with both hands, seemingly caring a lot less about being discreet. Sonic watches them turn a corner and split up, but just as he thinks about chasing a group, he hears more rustling feathers. He leaps forward off the building and into its shadow. He looks up and sees a few arrows flying as close as possible to the edge of the building. They stop. He looks back down, takes a breath of relief and thinks, "Man, they are good."

Just as he thinks that, he rolls to the side as an arrow lands straight downwards from where his head was. He looks up, and sees standing on the roof a quickly increasing number of echidnas who did not wear armor, with fiery red skin that seemed to burn and glow. Their speed and apparent strength made Sonic, for the first time in a while, feel threatened. He recoils backwards, before turning and running, only to find all of the streets ahead cut off by more of these echidnas, all of them with weapons in hand. However, they do not attack him further.

Sonic hesitates, and looks around for a way out. Sonic has to transform, but he has no power rings.

.

Suddenly, he realizes that he hasn't seen a single ring this entire time. He realizes once again that the reality he is experiencing is fake. Then, a voice shouts from a rooftop. The others all look in one direction. Then there is a massive fireball from something in the city exploding into the sky. This drives the echidnas into a frenzy, but a second afterward there is an increasing noise of multiple klaxons occurring simultaneously. The constant sound became piercingly loud as its focus passes over the surrounding area. The echidnas then start attacking in the streets ahead, most of them forgetting about Sonic entirely onto some unseen enemy. He looks around and then makes a break for it, glancing at what they changed their attention on, Sonic sees columns of soldiers marching closer while firing a steady stream of bullets.

He wall-jumps up a small building and runs on the rooftops. He looks into the night sky above, but sees nothing attacking him. For once, he is safe on higher ground. He then sees some of the echidnas jump up, as well. Some go around the city echidnas while others head straight for him. Suddenly, the power in the city grid shuts off block by block. He starts hearing screaming, and an increasing hubbub from the city. He looks back again only to see a building explode. As he turns his head back, he catches a glimpse of a fox walking down a street with two guards. Sonic comes to a wide street separating him from the other buildings. He looks at it for a moment and then ducks, seeing the powerful echidnas dashing through the street. He follows them with his eyes, seeing them run straight to the fox! He hears a death cry pierce the air, and looks over to see the foxes motionless on the ground save one who crawls away, talking into some device. Sonic realizes again where he actually is and looks away.

"There's no time for this..." he thinks and continues running.

He sees city Zexakal surging out of doorways, armed and not very well protected. They immediately fire at their targets, the attacking warrior echidnas who are stopped and hold back against the superior technology. Sonic, unwilling to get caught in the crossfire, moves in a different direction, only to see soldiers bearing heavier armor and weapons. They kneel behind corners and planted bullet shields, firing rapid bursts into a crowd of the cloaked echidnas Sonic ran into earlier. A division heads off to the other fight, where they start firing indiscriminately at both the militias and the attackers. Sonic runs turns again, only to see a fourth group approach the city on electric vehicles. They launch rockets, mortars and napalm into the city, exploding onto rooftops before Sonic. On reaching the city, Sonic sees that it is the fox army. The city's military, although caught off guard, quickly responds back and their infantries clash in the outer districts.

Sonic is about to decide to push through them when he hears a man shouting through a powerful megaphone far behind him.

"False Zexesh! We, the members of the Society of the Ancients demand you appear before the Infinity Tower, with no weapons nor accompaniment! We have in our possession the Origin Device! Do not resist us or we will activate it!"

Sonic, drawn by this event, comes to the edge of the Tower, situated in the center of a wide marble plaza with fountains and suspended gardens. He sees a group of echidnas in tailored, sharp dress walk calmly towards the entrance. He overhears talk of strategy and tactics, particularly hearing, "martial law" and "strike force". Meanwhile, the echidna with the megaphone leaning over a handrail shouts, "Listen to me! We desire three things to be executed without compromise! One: that the old institutions, of religion, politics, education and so on, are all reinstated and replace the new ones! Two: that I, Iopa, descendant of Zexesh Moklero, become the new, single Zexesh! Three: that all Black Stones be no longer profaned by unholy hands and Black Stone technology be restricted solely to the providence and use of the single Zexesh!"

Sonic looks at the other echidnas standing next to Iopa, who nonetheless wielded advanced melee and projectile weapons. The irony made him snicker.

"We accede to your demands!" another voice shouts from below, from one of the New Zexesh holding another megaphone.

"Then come to us, and do so alone! We shall inflict severe wounds upon you, such that you will never forget your promises made to us and the True Zexesh today!"

One of the New Zexesh, wearing more modest cloth, says loudly and clearly to his peers, "All kings face such apocalyptic turmoil as us. We will survive. But, how we act at these moments will live on much longer." Sonic observes him carefully, finding him rather familiar.

He then turns and walks through the massive double door into the base of the Infinity Tower, as black-clad echidnas sidle along the outer walls and quietly sneak in with him. Just then, an officer in a highly decorated uniform appears before the other New Zexesh. They turn and listen to his report as to how the supply lines were cut off by the foxes, and how they have no choice but to surrender or be eradicated by the triple threat.

The New Zexesh then intently deliberate the matter to each other in hushed tones, sometimes sparked by anger or sadness. The one with the megaphone replies that they must seek peace, and the officer nods, salutes, and promptly walks back to his own men.

Sonic looks around and for a moment, the city is still. There is a very chilling silence. Yet, the entire situation begs for resolution, like a log teetering over a precipitous edge. He hears cheers rising from echidnas around the city, proclaiming and exclaiming, happy tones marked by whoops and laughs.

An earth-shattering explosion knocks Sonic to his feet. He can only hear a shrieking noise piercing his ears. He feels himself immersed in heat, and turns to witness a massive blazing inferno explode upwards from a large underground facility. The fireball shoots into the sky, throwing pieces of metal and stone far around it. He sees people running away, covered in sweat and burns, although some lose energy very quickly and fall down unmoving. The high-pitched sound fades away as he hears death cries of men behind him. He turns again to see one of the strike troops hurtling from the balcony of the Tower. Looking to its top, he sees bodies lying around the Society, and the New Zexesh is held at his knees with a gun to his head.

"Look, your forces are defeated, your city is in flames, and one of your lives is in our grasp. Your era is over!" Iopa shouts.

The other New Zexesh talk to each other in fearful tones. They invent hasty solutions only for another to shoot them down as flawed and counter-productive. Then the megaphone is passed to the captured New Zexesh. He stands and walks before even Iopa, and says, "I told them about the strike force long before this encounter."

The others stop talking and look at their peer with incredulity. "Indeed, I wanted it to fail. Now, repeat your demands, Iopa. We have no recourse but to accept them."

Sonic watches the group on the ground squabble amongst themselves, throwing accusations and making suppositions. Iopa repeats his words from before ad verbatim, shouting over the screams of the city and the roar of the flames. He looks to the other side of the building to see the crowd being deflected by the last line of military, to prevent them from entering the central plaza. They held their ground but the pressure of the crazed multitude began to push them back.

Again, just as Sonic looks away he hears screams behind him. He turns to see the cloaked echidnas instead flying off of the balcony, landing violently on the eaves of the Tower and the hard ground far below. Sonic darts his eyes up, seeing the philosopher Zexesh attacking each and every one with a combination of abnormally fast physical strikes and powerful bursts of energy, executed with skill and finesse that put the Crystal Guardians to shame. Despite having weapons, all of the cloaked echidnas are killed in less than a minute.

His peers are stunned, and then become shocked and lose all sense of tact and propriety quite suddenly, shouting profanities and commands at the philosopher. Sonic watches him, who picks up the Black Emerald and places it firmly into the Origin Device. He speaks through the megaphone.

"Indeed, I told them where the Black Emerald and Origin Device were. I knew I could never do this unless all of you and your men were sufficiently distracted. I see you speak against me, but I do not hear it. Alas, is that your people behind you?"

As he says, the crowds finally break through the lines and flood into the plaza. The New Zexesh try to run away but are quickly consumed by the mob which throws all its energy into eliminating them. After a few brutal seconds, the philosopher speaks again, drawing their attention away.

"The world shall be wiped clean, and all who live upon its surface shall die." As he says it, a massive hole suddenly tears in the sky, glowing very bright as a curved surface emerges. It slowly pulls itself out of nothingness, and the people are frozen in awe despite the fire spreading around the city.

"This is Chaos. It is pure energy. In a few months, it will lose its structure instantly, and explode. Nearly everything will die."

Chaos fully reveals itself from the hole, which closes up behind it. It is a perfect sphere, its surface covered with colored, amorphous, flowing shapes. It seems placid, almost peaceful, despite what he said. The crowd, regaining its fervor, start hurling words out all at once.

The man speaks once more, "The Great Age is no more! Rightfully so, only those who can survive deserve to survive!" He throws the megaphone down and stomps on it, then disappears into the Tower.

Sonic, having gained no useful knowledge from experiencing this event, however truthful it was portrayed, decides to leave. And so he does, escaping the burning city and heading towards the mountains far away. On his way, he looks around, seeing lakes, forests and mountains he didn't recognize around the present-day Nexus.

.

Upon reaching the hills he sees an artificial cave dug into the slope, guarded by some of the powerful echidnas he met before. There was a large flat platform on wheels that had some crates on it, along with a pot boiling water on top of a small fire. One of them tells him that he should not be out on the surface for much longer. Sonic continues inward on the smooth ground, with walls lit in constant distances by torches. It is nearly identical to Torch Temple. The tunnel slopes downward and through a large stone entrance enters into a massive underground city. Sonic suddenly stops, and says aloud, "This is like Ka'ralei..."

A nearby man who was staring at the entrance says, "That is because we Anazze have assisted in the construction of all of the underground world, despite our former hostility to the Zexakal. We are not above our brothers, especially come times of difficulty."

Sonic recognizes the word, 'Anazze', but it seemed so long ago since he last heard it. He racks his memory, trying to find a connection. Upon thinking the word, 'connection', he remembers Zaga not explaining the connection between the Anazze and the Elders. He remembers it was in that hideout in the Misty Mountains. He turns to the man and asks, "You say you are not Zexakal... so do you not believe in Zexagalaxius?"

The man suddenly disappears. It happens instantly, but before Sonic could even think about it, the earth shook violently, again throwing Sonic to his feet. This time, however, the shaking does not stop. He hears shouts from up the tunnel and sees the Anazze guards riding the platform down the slope at high speeds, without much care for the cargo falling behind. They yell incessantly to drop the gate, and the echidna Sonic was talking to runs over to the side of the entrance. He yanks a thick cord, and suddenly a large iron slab slides down the two stone pillars aside the entrance and slams into the ground. Sonic then realizes he is shut with them, perhaps with no other way out, and tries to get to his feet. But the shaking continues and even increases in ferocity. There is a very low-pitched rumble that Sonic could feel shake his innards. Sonic assumes that Chaos had erupted.

After a few minutes, the ground stops moving. A large group of people suddenly appears behind him. The Anazze guard with the help of a few others pulls the cord again, lifting the gate. A few scientists go first. They return fairly quickly, gasping for breath, covered in burns. They tell the crowd that they absolutely cannot escape and recommend that the gates be closed permanently. They begin explaining about the air being full of radiation, only to be met by fierce cries. People run past them, desperate to return to the old world, while the scientists implore them to resist. The entire population does not heed them, crowding into the tunnels to escape.

Sure enough, panic returns like a boomerang from the entrance. People scream and beat each other to get back in with the frenzy of a fight-or-flight response. Sonic watches as the air seems to glow and become white, fast approaching the underground city. The echidnas within it quickly lose energy and collapse. A stampede heads towards him, and Sonic just barely gets out of the way as the panic leads to rioting. The scientists are attacked by mobs, but Sonic cannot help them as he, too, is chased, being called an 'alien' and 'outsider'.

He escapes the people by climbing up the buildings towards the center of the city. He then hears a familiar voice again, and sees the philosopher speaking on a pedestal to the angry masses. He decries the modern ways and modern technology, demanding that their Elders are reinstated as the traditional leaders. He orders all of the intelligentsia to be rounded up and to serve them. The existing military does so rather quickly, and he commands a selection of them to find the Black Emerald and to cast it away in space. They are not given time to decide, and are directed at gunpoint to a very narrow pathway that connects to the underground of Nexus. Sonic follows them.

Almost instantly, they are there. Yet as soon as they reach the massive cavern, part of which was covered in darkness despite the immense lighting of the undercity, they are forced to take a tunnel back to the surface. Sonic unmistakeably sees the Infinity Tower again in the center, despite originally being above ground. The gate, heavily guarded, is open for them, and Sonic runs and rolls under it before it closes.

Outside, the ground and sky are oversaturated, almost being completely white. All plant life is disintegrated, all soil is burnt, all water evaporated, and even the mountains are ripped to pieces. Sonic feels nothing, but he watches the scientists grimace and wince as their bodies succumb to the Air. They orientate themselves and head towards the epicenter of the blast.

In the center of a very wide and deep hemispherical crater lies the Black Emerald, completely intact. Although they were severely weakened, just holding the Emerald made the person seemingly immune to the Air. So they constantly hand it to each other as they move towards the next location.

For some reason, despite the long and intricate conversations they had on the way, Sonic remembers nothing from the trip, and as if it never happened, he finds himself walking into the passenger compartment of a rocket ship in an advanced underground launch base. Nobody talks to him, or is even aware of his presence. Sonic feels very strange, watching the scientists become compressed into their seats without feeling any force on him at all as they launch into space.

The ship orbits Mobius, which looks very much like a giant marble sphere. They approach and dock at a large space station that Sonic recognizes. He follows them through corridors he ran through himself until they reach the teleportation room. The other scientists see to the new arrivals' health, while the creator of Eralus sets in the coordinates for where the Black Emerald to be sent. He does not notice Sonic. Without any pomp it is exiled, and the echidnas, now aware of the reactionary politics at home, commit to a life of scientific research for the day when their civilization becomes enlightened once again.

.

Then Sonic appears in a new room. Startled, he regains awareness and says, "Core... why don't you just try to kill me instead?"

There is no answer. He looks around, finding himself in darkness. After a while, he finds he's in an extremely wide room with a relatively low ceiling. Near his are a bunch of tubes that undulate, radiating from a central cylinder. Black Stones were embedded at regular intervals into multiple lines which lead to the point in the middle of it all. Despite their color, they seemed to glow. "...I guess you're just going to waste my time, then. Or make me waste my own time, I guess."

He looks at the figures crowding around the middle. There are very slight tapping and gyrating noises. Sonic walks a few steps before he hears, "Now!"

A switch is thrown, and Sonic hears a low hum quickly grow in volume. Light suddenly comes charging from the distant corners of the room, surging up the Black Stone lines in pulses. The imminent area becomes washed with light, and Sonic holds his hands over his eyes, closes them. He opens one eye, and as the light darkens sees a group of echidnas in large rubber coats.

"Mechanix! Live, now!" he shouts. Mechanix suddenly leaps above them, somersaulting in the air and lands in front of them, facing Sonic. Sonic is startled again as the group stare at him, but regains composure when he realizes that nobody seems to be aware of him. The echidnas applaud cheerfully and stop.

Sonic then sees that one of the echidnas, the man who spoke, clearly resembled Zaga. "He is ready, O Sons of Zexagalaxius."

Sonic then realizes at that moment that he didn't see the hedgehog inside Mechanix. "But why would they show it?" he thinks.

He sees Zaga face a group of old men in heavy cloaks, their faces obscured by the shadow of their thick hoods. One of them speaks through a low, grumbling, lisping voice. "Mechanix, do you heed me."

The robot turns to face the elder and nods.

"Once he leaves the underground, by our predictions the local gases will lose 99% of their radiation within just 3 days. From then-"

"Silence!" Another elder hissed. "All of you are no longer needed. Leave, at once!" There scientists are confused and murmur to themselves.

Suddenly Sonic hears Core's voice. "This was not possible. I cannot-"

"What if we refuse?" Zaga questions defiantly. The deep-voiced man responds, "Then you will die. Mechanix-" Mechanix already swung his arms, throwing slicing energy crescents at the scientists, but Zaga throws his hand forward and creates a deflecting energy barrier. The elders gasp and curse. "You heathen! You break the central law of our society, to embed Black Stones into your body! Do you claim yourself as Zexesh?"

Mechanix runs fast around Zaga, who uses his other arm to fire energy shots back at him. He starts running after him when he sees Mechanix chase down one of the scientists. He thrusts forward and stabs one through his back with his sharp fingers. "No!" Zaga shouts. Then the old Zexesh sprint around the room, with 3 surrounding Zaga. They each fire energy bursts which vaporize their targets, except for Zaga who jumps high above them and springs off the ceiling towards Sonic.

He glances at Sonic. "Follow me," and runs. Sonic, confused and surprised, of course decides to follow him. They run towards the far walls.

"No. No. No. No. No. No." Sonic hears Core say.

After a certain distance, Sonic looks back and sees all of the Zexesh and Mechanix chase them. Zaga speaks again. "Do not concern yourself in the passing of time in this simulation. Only seconds have truly passed."

They slide under a falling steel slab into a hallway. "But then... are you real?" Sonic asks.

"I am independent of the original simulation, a virtual avatar of Zaga, encoded with information he believes might be of benefit to you. As you may have noticed, this history is largely artificial, imposing a story of protagonists and antagonists where such a one never existed. I have inserted myself in order to aid your escape from this reality. It is designed to be followed throughout."

They turn a few sharp corners before entering into the open air of the underground city, standing at the precipice of a floor high above the streets. The stalactite-covered ceiling sends frantic shadows dancing wildly inside of each other. Sonic hears gunshots and screams.

"This is what really happened," Zaga says to Sonic. He watches as a large group of echidnas swarm the streets, some breaking property, many chanting and singing and yelling. Sonic recognizes the emotion swelling in the air. Zaga grabs him and pulls him behind a column as the Zexesh and Mechanix run out. The people, seeing them, suddenly turn their direction to the building and charge into it, some staying outside, wrapping their numbers around the circumference.

"This is not our people. They do not praise Zexa. They worship their false god, Logic. Listen, they demand the return of the False Zexesh. Sin has corrupted their minds entirely." The other Zexesh converse about how far their society has fallen.

Suddenly Sonic, who was looking around, says, "This place... this is Ka'ralei!"

Zaga whispers, "Indeed. You shall experience yourself the bloody-hand-roguery of these vile men, as I told you so long ago."

"It is settled. Mechanix, we order you to go to each city of the world and destroy everything that is against the Order of Zaga and his Sons. If everyone dies, so be the will of Zaga!"

Mechanix nods, then leaps off the building. He falls towards the crowd, swinging his arms before slamming them into the natural stone floor, splitting it open. Sonic looks away as he hears sounds and voices cry sharply, amplified by the narrow streets. Zaga taps Sonic and gestures at another direction. They leap to the rooftop of a close building and wall-jump down an alley until they reach the street. They run down the roads, passing the clashes between the people and military, the people tied up and surrounded by the weapons of the military, and the many burning buildings. After a short while, Sonic notices they passed a collapsed landmark for the second time. He says, "Hey, Zaga! We're not going anywhere, you know!"

"I do know. There's nowhere to go. It was the same everywhere. But by moving, we make the time pass faster. Alas, look at that passageway to the connection to Migatch. This is the period where things got worse."

"Worse?" Sonic asks, then seeing a giant mass of creatures surge through the doorway. Their designs had an uncanny feeling with their elongated proportions and holistic, smooth shapes. Sonic immediately recognized the smaller ones bearing scythes on their arms, and the tanks with their buzz-saws. They scattered and spread out like vines, lines of them wrapping tightly around walls. The smaller ones pinned single echidnas down with their necks nicked by long, sharp blades. Like Mechanix, they had no hesitation to kill or destroy anything that got in their way.

Zaga then runs over to a large group of people and rallies them to freedom from all Zexesh. They quickly grow in numbers and stand their own against the attacking robots, as well as the Zexesh's army. The larger they grow, however, the more enemies attack them. Surely enough, Mechanix comes before them. The people almost instantly decide to flee, but Zaga steps forward and they all stay still in awe. For Mechanix had appeared when the people's emotions were at their highest, at the climax of a total social, political and economical revolution. This was also when the government was at its harshest, again losing all control when the people simply disobeys it. It was quickly proceeding to a deadly brutal totalitarian regime.

Mechanix was the central character amongst all of this, not out of any character he expressed (which was none). Mechanix could simply move down a street at such never before seen speeds, and his targets would die (often instantly). Nearly all of the people knew it was just the government's new perverse weapon in the shape of one of them, but it should be said there were an extremely small amount who instead worshiped this "cleanser of blood" as a death god championed in their favor, because they were supporters of the government. They keep this delusion despite their own people being killed.

At large, the population's numbers dropped dramatically, leaving the survivors feeling incredibly sad and also incredibly angry. And just the sound of Mechanix's mechanical body, the reminder that he exists, causes people to shiver and imagine Mechanix attacking right then, often sprinting towards them and then attacking, causing the hallucinating subject to faint. It was a constantly horrifying and terrifying time, and many people died just from never getting any sleep (and getting killed when they nod off).

But Zaga, the one who made him, who promised he would clean the Air, was not hated. No, not when people themselves saw Zaga help them with his "energetic" powers. There were many people compressed into this very dense but small city underground, people who believed in the New Zexesh because they appealed to an active intelligence and to peace, and people who believed in the Old Zexesh because they appealed to an active spirituality and to economic growth. They used to hate each other, desiring to destroy each other's institutions and goals in life. But now they were all being killed, and by the government. They could fight back, and die, but yet like a miracle Zaga stood between them and the murderers. Nobody died as Zaga routed their enemies. He encouraged total revolution and of helping them open their mind. Many people respected him, but again there were a small few who nearly worshiped him (often teenagers) because he was seen as a superhero. Nobody but the supporters of the government rejected him, who were extremely critical of a man who broke the central law of their society and was yet attracting people like a false god. This is the reasoning behind that elder talking about "sin".

So again, he stood before Mechanix. "Stop."

Mechanix did not move. Zaga walked closer to him. The people were speechless. Zaga walks around him and opens up a compartment, revealing a small screen and a key pad. He types in commands and then shuts the compartment again.

"I didn't know you were such an incredible guy, Zaga. You're almost as incredible as me," Sonic said, grinning.

"I did what I wanted. That's all. Mechanix! Do you heed me?"

Mechanix nodded. The crowd goes wild in cheers. "And now, Sonic, you will witness my first defeat. Now with the death god in our control, we can finally eliminate the Zexesh and free ourselves entirely of all control!" The crowd roars and screams in ecstatic joy. So Zaga runs and the people run behind him. They charge the streets and people inside see Mechanix leading them, deciding to drop whatever they were doing and went with them. The crowd quickly grows by the hundreds, flooding each street as they move towards the central tower. They charge in through the front doors, and Sonic thinks how it's like he's in the same scene. He looks up to see the Zexesh stand above. Mechanix and Zaga stop moving.

"Okay. I'm going to attack them directly. Continue up the building, and they will have nowhere to go!"

The crowd is mostly quiet, not understanding, until Zaga suddenly starts flying and so does Mechanix. They remain silent, lost in awe. Sonic shouts, "Hey, what?! Zaga, you jerk!" He transforms into Super form and flies above the people's heads. They fly towards the top of the Ka'ralei tower. The columns are entirely the same, but the rusted grating was simply a stone floor. The Elders stood before them wearing elaborate robes. There were seven of them, and Sonic instantly recognized the colors of their skins as the same as the Chaos Emeralds. For a moment, he was frozen by his observation, but then landed onto the floor next to Zaga and Mechanix.

"So you managed to get this far. I admit it, to drive us this powerfully in the endgame, using our main weapon against us, we were certain to have lost. But we have some pawns you forgot about."

Zaga looked over the sides of the floor and saw Old Zexesh supporters ambushing the people, cutting them off from the greater amoeba. He looked back at the Zexesh. "You cannot distract me. I am going to kill all of you."

"Try it," a familiar voice says. Sonic looks at the man, and recognizes the philosopher New Zexesh who activated Project Origin.

Zaga and Mechanix attack the seven Elders together, but they hold their own. Sonic tries to attack but he simply fades through them without feeling anything. He just steps back and returns to normal form, just watching. In a short time they overpower Mechanix and then Zaga. One tries to reprogram Mechanix, but he says, "He locked the hardware. We can't do anything with it now."

"It's fine," the philosopher says. "We don't need it anymore. Seal it away somewhere far from here."

"What about Zaga? Should I kill him?" said the Zexesh holding Zaga's neck to the floor.

The philosopher looks over at him. He kicks him in the face. "He's the most perfect echidna of this generation, despite being aimed against us. Yet he is a fossil, and his way of thought is obsolete. So we should fossilize him and perhaps enact some punishment when the entire population opposes his treason in the future."

"I was just thinking, Zaga. If you reprogrammed this simulation, then you must be somewhere in Nexus, right?" Sonic asked. Zaga turned his head and responded while the Zexesh joke to each other. "No, I was in the Infinity Tower and manipulated the code through Core's main console. At this moment I should be halfway up the Infinity Tower by now. By the time you reach it, I should be already entering the zenith. I will hold the Zexesh back but there's a chance I am overpowered again. And now..."

.

Zaga and the Zexesh and the floor and columns and ceiling and the entire tower and every building and even the cavern walls and all else just disappeared. Sonic is surrounded by darkness. "This time period was not in the original simulation. I learned of this period only by talking to the many independent echidnas in the modern world. The Elders won and demanded 100% enlistment into the military. Everyone was forced to do hard agricultural or manufacturing labor or be a soldier used to invade other lands. There were several peoples who managed to fend off the Ka'ralei empire, the Alastrans, the Anazze and of course the Angelia. The Angelia, you see, instead of digging underground, took a large chunk of the land and using the massive amount of Black Stones hidden within, made it float high above the clouds where the radiation was minimal. The underground city of Nexus, despite being so far away, also enacted a brutal authoritarian regime which easily assented to the rule of the Elders. For those who did not become Ka'raleian, they suffered extreme poverty if they were not enslaved. Many of the other species which also built underground cities, such as the foxes, were also suppressed. The Zexakal religion was forced on everyone, and those who did not convert were killed."

And then Sonic appears in a room again, a massive room itself within an even larger room filled with giant mechanical moving parts, all used to power a moving steel wall and energy barrier over the sealed Mechanix. Indeed, it was the second most-bottom room in Mechanix Seal, except the clockwork seemed a little unfamiliar. Sonic looks around and sees that the steel door to the lower area was not built and the hallway did not exist. The machinery's noise then changes and slows down. The barrier dissipates. Sonic looks forward, seeing a bunch of echidnas in suits bearing symbols of the Zexesh manipulating some parts at the edge of the room. The gears rotate at a much slower speed and Sonic then sees this as the state he remembers.

Mechanix, his body half-encased in a mold, is revealed and his mold is vertically lowered from the top of the room until it reaches the ground level. Sonic walks closer, hearing the sages excitedly describe and analyze the patterns on Mechanix's body, piecing together a larger theory and then sampling its applications. In a matter of minutes, one of them suddenly says, "Aha!" and creates a diagram as the others watch him, becoming more excited as he draws. When he finishes, they all enthusiastically support the idea and plan to construct it immediately. They turn around and walk towards the exit. Sonic does the same, and upon exiting the hallway he enters a new room. He faces a large cement wall, hearing metal clanging and plasma fizzling. He turns around to find himself in a workshop.

Vents and pipes branch around the ceiling between long, harshly bright fluorescent lamps. Multiple dim shadows emanate from every echidna and the complicated devices they were assembling. They wielded many tools, some mechanical, all the while constantly reading detailed instructions pinned to the tables. Hanging in regular intervals on every wall are massive diagrams of the detailed surface of Mechanix's body, with denotations and references filling every possible negative space. He walks down the rows of tables, looking at the many machines, large and small. Unexpectedly, one of the workers looks back at Sonic. Just then, a whip cracks on the table and the worker quickly turns his head and returns to his labor. Sonic looks up and sees a soldier, wearing a Mechanix-like armor that Sonic remembered from the ruins in the Void.

"Yes, yes, quite interesting, isn't it?" someone says. Sonic looks left and sees an echidna in poofy robes and wearing many metal rings around his limbs and dreads. He walks towards him with a pleased expression. "It is spiritual work, to recreate the truly ingenious design of Mechanix into so many varied applications. We are on the precipice of a technological revolution, merely from the Image of the holy one!"

Sonic supposes that since he is visible, this part of the simulation was left untouched by Zaga. The man walks towards an exit of the room and Sonic follows. Sonic recalls his experiences in the Void and assumes that he is now in Alastra. As they enter the passage, Sonic peers out of the long glass windows lining the walls. He sees the Alastran underground and instantly recognizes the central building piercing from the low depths through the ceiling.

The echidna remarks, "Ah, yes, the Infinity Tower. You have done well to come at this time, sire. But I dare not explain what shall very soon happen. Have faith, all will become clear." At the end of the passage is an elevator, and upon entering it, the echidna tells the bellboy to go to the top. It slowly slides into motion, sharpening the angles of the many buildings of underground Nexus until they seem flat below. The view is cut away by layers of earth which zoom by, and before long they appear above the surface. The landscape is just as barren as it was, with the grand exception of the Infinity Tower which yet climbed higher and higher into the white sky. Its brilliant colors and design seemed to glow from the Air around it.

The door opens and they step out into a small glass chamber filled with ostentatiously decorated chairs. There are about 50, with all but two taken up by dignitaries and noblemen, who stare judgingly at the two newcomers. The guide motions to sit and Sonic does so. He already knows what will happen and feels a little excitement into seeing it. A calm, polite murmur returns to the crowd. They wait, and Sonic tries not to eavesdrop but hears of scandals, economics and politics from almost every corner of the room despite their low volume.

Then, the guide stands up again and walks in front of them all. He speaks, "From the beginning of our history books, one cannot but marvel at the amazing accomplishments of our race. Indeed, it is nigh impossible to fathom the insurmountable odds of a simple man like Zexa becoming the absolute leader of the entire world, long before government ever existed. The First Zexesh and their incredible deeds reflect the innate godliness of our people, the Zexakal. Through their leadership and Zexa's gift of the Black Stones we created the Black Emerald, a technological panacea that rocketed us into the First Great Age. Yet our pride exceeded us and we dismissed the old ways for the new, letting heathens become our leaders who allowed our entire planet to be destroyed in a single instant. And so the humble Earthen Age began, with the True Zexesh returned to power. With the mandate of Zexa they ruled righteously, and created the vessel Mechanix within who Zexa reincarnated himself to cleanse the Zexakal of impurities. We suffered much but managed to survive, no, _thrive_, despite living in a dead world."

"The Air continues to leak through the heaviest of our gates and plagues us, a specter of death always awaiting us at our front doors. But we do not fear death! Look at the Infinity Tower, piercing through the very crater from which the Event began! It does not stop there, no! We built it to touch heaven itself! Yet even though we have Image suits where one can walk in the Air unharmed, that is not enough. No, as Zexakal, as followers of Zexa, we must not be satisfied with half-truths!"

Suddenly, bursts of energy pulse up winding, spiraling tracks on the Infinity Tower's surface. It grows with light, every surface illuminated and embedded with a colorful, pulsing illumination. The light charges to the very top, and the awe of the audience is suddenly shocked, to the admittance of a few screams even. Sonic looks carefully, and sees the sphere on top, the same one from his time.

"The Holiest Zexesh are within the Zenith, the greatest Image yet made. It is the essence of what we learned from Mechanix, the ability to absorb and convert energy!"

There is a convolution of people speaking, and nearly everyone lost their composure. There was a surging potential, a feeling like a geyser about to explode. One man asks, "Are we worthy?"

The guide had turned and was staring at the Zenith, which was glowing white, whiter than everything else. He gulps, and says, facing away, "We have been faithful, and Zexa through the Zexesh has given us salvation. Feel it, the coming of a new era, the revival of our planet..."

There is a suddenly flash, and everything is white. A deafening roar, although Sonic hears voices. "The Second Great Age..." he hears shouted, but it sounds like a whisper.

.

As the white fades away, Sonic finds himself again looking out a window but hundreds of feet above the ground. Looking at the ground, he sees many buildings in construction and plenty already built. Looking into the distance he sees other cities springing up from the wasteland surface which has finally returned to at least an earthen color. Sonic sees flora slowly returning around the land. The sky is pale blue. Sonic turns his head, and surely enough he sees the Infinity Tower. "Still in Nexus," Sonic thinks.

Suddenly the window becomes opaque, changes color and slowly forms an image. It is the eye of Core again. "Sonic," it says.

"Aren't you breaking the fourth wall here?" Sonic asks snidely.

"That is irrelevant. I was created in this era, so now I can be in this game," it responds.

"A game? I thought this was a so-boring-you'd-die history lesson?"

"It is a simulation meant to kill, to teach, to punish and so on. Everything within it must abide by its rules. To you and I it is just a game and has as much risk as a game."

"It's not even fun, though. It's just a long detour. Why not just kill my real body?"

"I agree. The comments in the source imply concepts of justice and art before dictating, quote: "The guilty is the protagonist and must not be killed in the simulation step of the justice process." End quote. Even I am obligated to replicate my former actions as dictated by the narrative script. Quote: "It will enforce loyalty on the conscious part." End quote."

"So once this is over, do you finally get to prove that you can kill me?"

"Yes," it says, just as a massive energy beam is fired from the top of the Infinity Tower. Sonic follows it to its target far in the distance. A large, approaching army scatters, and as the beam is fired again, they mostly move around it. Sonic hears a siren starting to wind, and troops throughout the city flood into the streets towards their enemies. Within a few minutes, everything Sonic sees is engulfed in warfare.

"It is a sad state of affairs," Sonic hears from behind him. He turns and sees a green echidna wearing multiple robes with regal embroidery and embedded gems. Apparently, a Zexesh.

"What's happening here?" Sonic asks, although he has an inkling.

The Zexesh seemed slighted by the directness of the question. He replies, "Core. Answer this for him."

"Acknowledged," Core says. "The Air was absorbed through the Zenith machine into seven points, where they were crystallized into the seven Chaos Emeralds. They were used in a period of mass reconstruction as Zexakal civilization returned to the overworld. However, ethnic splits within the Zexakal were growing larger and more deadly. Attempting to avert civil war, the honorable Zexesh decided to split the seven Emeralds amongst themselves and to go their separate ways, leading their separate peoples who could no longer live together."

"A few weeks ago, an Alastran's body was found near the body of the Zexesh of Saliom. The nations of Saliom and Fere'nau, its ally, declared war on Alastra. The religious Fere'nau have also attacked the Anazze who refuse to accept a Zexesh as leader, and the Anazze have attacked back. The floating land of Angelia is also at war with Migatch due to a string of assassinations and conspiracies. The Migatch have attacked Ka'ralei in vengeance for suffering the brunt of Mechanix's holy cleansing, which has made them the enemies of the Fere'nau as well. Fere'nau has also launched a crusade against Angelia. The world is now in a global war, using the Chaos Emeralds and latest Images, it has been called the Great War, the Final War, or the Emerald War."

Sonic looks out the window, watching flying ships get shot down and crash into buildings in the city. There are fires and clouds of smoke everywhere. The constant noise and light of the battle make it through even this far above it all. Energy bullets and beams fill the sky.

"My own brothers have called me an anti-Zexesh, a false prophet. The Great Age of the One Land seems so distant now..."

"May I ask you another question?" Sonic asks, turning to the man. "Certainly," he responds.

"Why did you make the Chaos Emeralds, despite knowing what the Black Emerald did to the world?"

"The intention was peaceful... but the currents of savagery in our battered population have returned us to the tempest of war. None of us Zexesh desired this at first. With all seven together, the One Land would be at peace. But the people had grown to hate each other so severely that even we could do nothing but go along.

"Stop right there, Zexesh of Alastra!" Sonic hears shouted. He sees a squad of commandos in heavy but flexible armor aiming large cannons at them. "Core," the Zexesh says, to no response. He repeats, "Core!" Sonic glances back, but the image of Core's eye had disappeared when he didn't notice.

"We have contained your puny defense program! You have nowhere to run! Surrender or die!" the captain shouted. Sonic yawns.

Just then, the building suddenly shakes from a massive explosion. Some of the commandos fall over. "What the fuck?! Don't they know we're in here?!"

The Zexesh turns to Sonic and says, "I will make an exit for you. Take it! Don't worry about me."

Sonic makes a half-interested nod and watches the Zexesh eject a wall of energy that throws the soldiers into the wall. Sonic runs past them and enters an open stairwell. He peers over the edge of the handrails between the spiraling staircase and sees tongues of fire lick the walls far below. Seeing that, he leaps in between the steps and falls straight down.

.

He transforms right before he enters the fire and lands hard on the bottom floor. Just as he does, the floors above give way and collapse on each other. Sonic continues, breaking through every door in his path, moving through the hallways both small and large until he passes the reception desk and shatters the front glass door. The building implodes behind him and he just barely escapes through the streets from the massive cloud of debris chasing him down.

For a split second, everything turns black before returning as if nothing happened. "A glitch?" Sonic thinks. He forgets about it and reverts to his normal form, exploring the older Nexus streets (which look essentially like the outer boroughs of modern Nexus). Yet he sees nobody. All of the storefronts are closed and most of the windows are dark. Many of the street lights are burnt out. He turns a corner and sees a man wearing a full-body coat, tight boots and gloves, with a wide-brimmed hat and a mask with drooping pipes curving back into the suit. Upon seeing Sonic, he slowly walks towards him. Sonic, although a little creeped out, draws near and asks him, "What happened here? Where is everyone?"

There is a click and the sound of squeezed gas, like an aspirator. "Are you some ascetic? Know you not of the plague that afflicts the globe?"

Sonic responds, "No, not at all." The man replies, "Only a month ago the initial vector transferred the virus to the first host. Surely enough the first host contacted many people within a week, perhaps up to a hundred. At the end of the week, the man in particular was suffering high fever and internal hemorrhaging, along with many other gruesome symptoms. The day the symptoms appeared, the man died."

Sonic understands. "By the time you knew how fatal it was, it was already too late, then?"

"Yes. In three weeks, cities around the world were losing tens of people per day. The virus must have mutated at this time into the present aerial form, which dramatically improved its transmission. At four weeks, economies were slowed to a standstill and bodies started to fill the streets. The governments tried to quarantine as many as they could but it was hopeless. There was fanatical chaos, as if the world itself became infected. On the fifth week, there was just nobody left but uninfected people who quarantined themselves away. But we have a solution now."

"A cure?" Sonic asks.

The man paused for a very short moment, and says, "No. A solution. Deep underground, deeper than the Earthen Age city, we have built a cryogenic chamber to hold anyone that's still alive in a deep sleep that might last centuries or even longer. The virus should die out by then."

"If you're all asleep, how do you know when to awake?" Sonic asks.

"The Zexesh have sent an infected man, a historian of Zexakal mechanical design, to the Seal of Mechanix. He is to reprogram Mechanix to seek out the Chaos Emeralds and transfer his energy into the many Black Stones of the underground cities, to resurrect our land and ourselves when the time is right."

Sonic thinks, "So while the echidnas were asleep, the other species must have been able to live in peace. It explains why echidnas were considered extinct before the history of New Mobius began! So finally, we come full-circle... except for one thing." He asks, "But who would reactivate Mechanix?"

"Himself, of course. The Seal is only temporary as its materials naturally degrade over time," the man says. He holds up his arm and looks at a dense watch. "You are fortunate to meet me now. The sleeping chambers will be sealed shut very soon. Come! We must hurry."

So Sonic follows him through the streets, into a building and down a long set of stairs. They stand on a tower overlooking the undercity of Nexus, and again run through the streets towards the bottom of the Infinity Tower. There, they enter another door and move down a narrow stone spiral staircase. As they descend, Sonic tries to peek out the slit-like windows but can only see darkness. Finally, they reach the bottom and enter a large circular chamber connected to several others, dimly lit by small purple emergency lights on the floor, with the curved walls lined with glass and metal capsules. Nearly all of them are filled, mostly by echidnas in clothing of higher standing, lying supine on the angled, cushioned beds. Many have disconcerted expressions and some were outright sobbing. A few look at the two newcomers, who search the capsules for an empty one.

The man finds a single one open and takes off his heavy suit with simple clothing underneath. He says to Sonic, "There is only a few minutes left, by my watch. The system is automated and will execute whether all of the capsules are filled or not. As intimidating as it may seem, as soon as we fall asleep we will all awaken in the far future, in a safer, healthier world. Do not be afraid, my friend! We will meet again very shortly! Adieu, adieu!" He shuts the large glass door and puts himself in a comfortable position.

Sonic continues, sprinting through the many chambers, finding them all closed and filled, until he reaches the very last room. Nearly half remain vacant and he enters the closest one. He rests on the bed which is actually rather stiff, and pulls the door shut from a handle on the inside. It closes with a slam and he hears air flowing into the small cylinder, pressurizing it. He looks around at the other echidnas, some of which who exchange glances and expressions, everyone waiting, when all of a sudden he hears Core's voice.

"Simulation ending in 3. 2. 1."

.

Without blinking, all of the other echidnas just disappear without a trace. There is a glare that causes Sonic to squint, and he sees that the lights in the room are now completely on. He pushes open the door and walks out. He looks around and then decides to exit the room, which hasn't changed at all until he finds that the staircase no longer exists. Instead, there is a trapezoidal tunnel with bright lights shining up from the bottom corners. At the end the ceiling and walls disappear, leaving a bridge that spans over a very long distance. Slowly walking out, he turns his head around, trying to grasp everything he sees. He is in a massive underground cavern, but the rocks are of a much harder and darker type than anything he has seen. There are many lines of lights shining from the very distant walls, creating geometric patterns around large, advanced machinery. The walls are flat and smooth, artificially created. Upon looking closer, he sees that there are hundreds of thousands of tiny, shiny Black Stones embedded in the rock. He looks down and sees bright channels of magma sharply turning from side to side around massive pumping machines, connected by large pipes. He turns his head up and sees complicated machines with functions he could only guess drooping from the invisible ceiling and seemingly hovering in mid-air throughout the wide space.

Looking straight ahead, he sees behind all of the darkness and mechanica the bottom of the Infinity Tower, covered with bright lights revealing its artistic, flowing, almost fiery shape planted with immense pyramidal weights into the earth.

A monitor floats up from below the bridge, with Core's eye. Sonic says, "So, what're you gonna do? Going to test me on my knowledge of your stupid people's sordid history?"

"No. I'm going to kill you," Core responds. Just then, four large aircraft suddenly lift above the bridge, surrounded by almost 50 echidna soldiers with jetpacks.

"You're a bad liar," Sonic says, smiling. He jets, just as all of them attack him at once.

- As Sonic runs down the bridge, they chase him almost up to his speed while letting loose wave after wave of projectile attacks:

- some which curve through the air to confuse him

- and others that explode upon contact.

The aircraft take 6 hits before bursting into flames and crashing somewhere. The soldiers who get close try to attack him directly with melee weapons, but Sonic can dispatch a single one with a single hit.

He is constantly confronted by powerful enemies right after.

- Every soldier has powerful weapons and good accuracy, often mixed in with a few Black Shard users who tail Sonic much faster than anyone else.

- There are also many attack robots, driving on the bridge or flying through the air, firing a nonstop barrage of projectiles at Sonic.

- Every now and then there is a tank or a powerful and quick Black Shard robot blocking the way forward on the bridge.

As an alternative to this road, there are the many 'floating' machines which Sonic can attempt to climb. He must make skilled use of his angled wall-jumping, climbing the narrow ledges and pipes to positions closer to the next platform. Occasionally, he'll need to spindash inside the tubes, having pressurized air burst him out in one direction or another. While most of them are small, hanging cubes or dodecahedrons, there are a few that are quite large with suspended catwalks and vertical alcoves.

Core will not let him progress so easily, however. It activates:

- defense cannons,

- laser grids

- and energy barriers to block or slow down certain routes unless Sonic goes fast enough. Some of the machines can have their operation changed, with squishing pistons activating, gears changing direction and electric currents arcing between nodes.

.

Finally, Sonic reaches the end of the bridge, a circular platform suspended from both walls and on a single pillar above the ground far below. The base of the Infinity Tower stands still some distance before him, but he is closer to it than ever before. Its structurally agglomerated surface is filled with lights of all colors and shapes, some steady and others changing brightness and hue. There are an innumerable amount of details upon it, of vents, windows, pipes, and balconies; of abstract shapes structurally necessary and unnecessary. At the very bottom, it is chained to four gigantic pyramids of a single cut of stone. Sonic follows it upwards, and is caught off-guard to see that the cavern opens vertically, and even more to see the bottom of the underground part of Nexus. The buildings above drop down from the ceiling like stalactites, even with ornamental roofs facing downward. However, they are so far above that Sonic has no choice but to transform.

.

"You're trapped, god-killer," Sonic hears from behind him. He turns around to see only two echidnas standing side to side. The one on the left is a bright red echidna, with a few layers of green cloth wrapped both tightly and loosely around his body. He bears white markings resembling raging and exploding fire on nearly all of his visible skin, and he wields a long scimitar. The right one has deep blue skin with white markings resembling flowing and splashing water. He wears orange armor and wields an even longer staff. "Try flying. We can fly, too." They walk around to both sides of him.

"Finally you guys wisen up and send two of you Crystal Guardians after me. This might even be interesting," Sonic scoffs, turning his head to both.

There is a sudden clank of metal against the floor. Sonic turns his head just enough to glance at the newcomer. It is a yellow and purple robot about their size, with angular, overlapping forms clearly visible even to its glowing energy core contained under several layers of rotating circles. Its head is thin but long, not much more than a container for its single robotic eye. "Oh, so Core thinks this guy is dangerous enough to use her First Proxy?" the red one says.

Sonic looks around. They formed a triangle around him. To no one in particular he says, "Shouldn't you be sending your entire everything at me? I destroyed your death god. You can't possibly have anything stronger than him."

"Core is stronger. She gathers power and intelligence from every connected processor and Black Stone. She commands every Image. She is the Ultimate Image of Mechanix himself: improved in every way," the blue one says.

Sonic just laughs.

The red one growls, shouts, "Ingrate! Let's kill him now!"

"Calm yourself, Shala," a voice speaks. It comes from nowhere in particular. The two Guardians drop to their knees and bow their heads. "Holiest!" they say.

"This is no ordinary enemy you are fighting," the Zexesh says. Sonic smirks. "Thanks for the compliment. I thought you guys were going to destroy the world or something? What happened to that?" "Impertinent-" Shala began, but the blue one gives him a sharp look that keeps him from standing back up.

"Shala. Emin. This is no game. You must stop this hedgehog with all of your might. Even with all three of you, you will not win."

Shala and Emin suddenly look up at nothing, an awareness that changed their expressions completely. Emin slowly lowers his head, while Shala continues staring.

"Someone has been interfering with Core's systems, preventing us from reaching the Origin Device within the Zenith. Meanwhile, this hedgehog has only gotten closer! He has the Chaos and Master Emeralds. His transformation makes him nigh invincible!"

Sonic, tired of listening, juts in, "Yeah, yeah, I'm such a badass, etc. etc. Listen, I've had enough of this." He transforms there and then, and Shala and Emin jump up. "I'm tired of running around! I'm heading straight to you, Elders!"

Core then slams its fist into the ground, and a burst of energy from its arm travels through the floor towards its edges, where streams of energy curve through the air. They reattach at the pinnacle directly above, forming a wide bubble of moving energy which shimmers in the dim light.

Shala looks straight at Sonic. "I was going to have fun playing with you, but if you worry even the Greatest Leaders... I have no choice but to kill you at full power!"

Emin, without making a word, simply swings his staff around very rapidly and then strikes multiple balls of energy towards Sonic.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

Sonic can fly around the massive bubble and even run on its surface, but he cannot escape it.

Shala runs around the surface. All of his attacks are made of sap energy. They are:

- Approaching Sonic and attacking him slice after slice

- Dashing directly towards Sonic and slicing through him

- Slicing the air, sending a crescent of energy towards Sonic which then explodes

- Slicing at the ground, sending a large wave around the bubble for several revolutions before it dissipates. As he loses health, the wave is larger and moves faster

He takes 14 hits to down.

Emin jumps from one spot to another, or walks short distances. All of his attacks are made of slow energy. They are:

- Approaching Sonic and attacking him hit after hit

- Dashing around Sonic to his sides and then slamming his staff into him

- Swinging his staff around rapidly, creating balls of energy he then rapidly strikes towards Sonic

- Spinning around his staff, creating a large mass of liquid-like sap energy which fills up a section of the bubble and then rotates around the room, unaffected by gravity until it evaporates. As he loses health, the liquid takes up more space

He takes 15 hits to down.

Core Proxy flies around, adjusting its position and generally staying away. All of her attacks are made of shock energy. They are:

- Attacking Sonic with a combination of hits twice as fast as the Guardians if he gets close to her

- Dashing to Sonic's backside when she finds an opportunity and slamming him into the bubble, attacking him repeatedly before throwing an explosion into him

- Launching a single ball of energy that homes in on Sonic for about 7 seconds before disintegrating

- Launching a large ball of energy into the center of the bubble, which then explodes in 6 waves (with a few openings)

She takes 20 hits to down.

If one of their health's decreases past 2/3rds, the others will attempt to defend them from Sonic's attacks. They will also launch more of their attacks at the same time, particularly the stage-filling attacks.

Once they are all defeated, the bubble simply pops and they fall to the floor. However, the battle is not yet over.

- All together, they fire their respective energy beams which spin around each other towards Sonic. Sonic can just barely get out of the way, only for the triad beam to curve and home in on him. So he must move towards his attackers and get out of the way just in time for their own beam to hit them.

In a massive explosion they are defeated, and Sonic simply continues on, flying upwards towards the hanging city.

.

[Act 2]

Sonic flies through the buildings, avoiding the skybridges connecting some of them, and soon is bombarded by attacks from positioned soldiers, robots and turrets. Some soldiers, robots and smaller aircraft fly around him, attacking him in the air with projectiles and directly with melee if they are wielding such weapons. After a short while, he sees a road winding and curving between the buildings and decides to land on it.

He runs on the road which bends on every axis around the vertical columns of stone and steel, their structures both archaic and highly futuristic lit by soft, glowing lights on every surface. He blasts through the many enemies that get in his way or chase him down, both big and small don't last very long. Occasionally they blow up the road, but Sonic simply jumps over the gaps.

The road runs through a few buildings, in which Sonic can veer off the course and climb up the towers. Eventually, he'll have no choice but to climb as the road ahead will be completely destroyed. The interiors vary greatly depending on what building it is.

- Some simply contain long hallways filled to the brim with enemies.

- Others may have staircases spiraling up the edges.

- Yet others may contain large moving machines with squishing and gyrating parts,

- while even more others may just have large vertical spaces only containing a few long slivers of platform that Sonic must wall-jump up.

Often, there will be no way to continue vertically, and Sonic will have to run through a skybridge if there is one, or take a running leap to the next building if there isn't. And if there's no building close enough to jump to, Sonic will have no recourse but to climb up the narrow ledges and shafts on the exterior of the buildings. He must climb up more than jump across as the hanging city's ceiling rises higher the closer it gets to the Infinity Tower.

Halfway through his ascent, there is a sudden barrage of rockets that bombard the building he is on. Its upper floors are consumed in a fireball and the walls and pylons quickly give way. The building drops. Sonic runs out as fast as he can, climbing if he needs to, to jump to a safe building. But Sonic is not safe as the rockets hound him down and blast his building to smithereens. He must always be on the move, wall-jumping more than he ever has before to keep ahead.

Finally, he spots a balcony jutting out from the Infinity Tower, one not very far away. Yet it is above him. The final building that he is in is quite large but its walls are resolute and do not break easily from the heavy rocket fire still being launched, and from his destination, too. The fire is then aimed at the very ceiling itself, cracking open the rocks and letting the building slowly slip out of its foundation. Sonic makes way through the hazard-ridden building, using whatever platforms he can to launch himself ever higher, just as soldiers and robots break through the stained glass windows and bronze doors, attempting to slow Sonic down. The building slips faster and faster, but Sonic is near the top. After a harrowing platforming experience, he finally reaches a suitable distance above the balcony, just as his building falls completely out. He leaps through a giant circular glass window, one with the likeness of Zexa in its center, and flies through the air.

He lands and rolls on the balcony. Ahead of him are monuments and pedestals standing before a massive, circular, mechanical gate. It is surrounded by electronics and machinery of a highly complex nature, interweaving and concealed behind ornaments. And standing before it is a large robot, with a fearsome head baring spiked horns and a single, piercingly hot, glowing white eye sat on top of a massive, armor-plated torso. It wore a skirt of steel over industrial-size legs, and its two massive arms gripped tight an even larger claymore, its elaborate engravings pulsating with color like channels of energy.

"Let me guess. ...what was the word? You must be Core's Second Proxy, then. As if it means anything," Sonic says.

Core doesn't move, but her eyes still glow. Sonic takes a step forward to no response. He stops, silent. Then, he jumps, just as a rocket hurtles at him from above, and passing to its side he gives it a single strike in its side, launching it towards Core. Like lightning, she swings her sword and the rocket is cleaved, the two warhead halves flying into the wall to either side of her, exploding.

"You're better than Mechanix, right? Prove it! C'mon, this entire journey has been _boring,_" Sonic chides.

Core swings her blade rapidly around with both hands, and then suddenly strikes the ground, sending a fast wave of energy twice her height at Sonic.

"Heh. How weak."

.

[Act 2 Boss]

Core's Second Proxy actually moves very fast, at the speed of Mechanix in basic form (just below Sonic's max speed). She can temporarily dash at twice that speed as well. She can also jump (and somersault) about 5 times as high as she is tall. She moves around often, alternating between getting in good positions for projectile attacks and moving directly at Sonic to attack him. All of her attacks have the shock attribute. Her attacks in particular are:

- Her ground strike which produces the massive wave, which Sonic must avoid by using a pedestal or wall to jump above it.

- A nonstop combination of sword attacks. Horizontal, diagonal and vertical slices, a piercing stab with a long range, a ground-chopper, and a blunt-side smack

- Launching out many rockets from the launcher on her back, which either stupidly rain on the battlefield or smartly home in on Sonic

- Stabbing her sword into the ground for a while, freeing her hands

- With her hands free, she can stand and shoot two separate, prehensile streams of energy like floating whips she can control.

- She can rapidly fire hundreds of tiny bullets in spinning waves and lines that covers the entire battlefield

- She can run up close to Sonic and let loose an explosion of energy at point-blank range

After 15 hits, she commands turrets to emerge from the pedestals, which fire sap, slow, or regular energy. They may:

- sprinkle it back and forth,

- shower it from above like a fountain,

- fire directly at Sonic,

- or just fire randomly.

They can be destroyed with 6 hits each, and there is 6 of them in total. Once they are all destroyed, they return within 20 seconds.

After 10 more hits, the Second Proxy falls to its knees.

.

"You suck! That was easy as hell. I don't even need to try anymore. I might as well-"

The white glow does not disappear from its eyes, however, and suddenly it bursts in brightness. It stands up and tears off the armor on its body, piece by piece. It makes itself much thinner, although it is still of considerable size. It then walks over to its sword and picks it up.

"Ah. So you really are trying your hardest, aren't you?"

Core points its sword at the giant gate, holding it with one hand. "You want this open?" she asks.

Sonic smirks. "Yeah. Do it."

Core then grabs the handle with her other hand, and suddenly the sword glows brightly, pulsating quickly with energy and light. There is a loud groaning sound, of metal bending and snapping, and the large gate behind her bulges towards the sword. The ground underneath her cracks and breaks, flying through the air and clinging tight to the sword, which glows at the same luminosity nonetheless. She pulls it forward, and the gate bulges forward. A fissure pops in the floor and the cracks quickly splinter to both sides. Then, all at once, she swings the blade forward, and not just the gate but the entire wall explodes off, while the balcony, faster than can be seen, falls completely into pieces, with every scrap tiny and humongous flinging straight towards the sword, clumping together and compressing tightly into a burning liquid mass. And just as the wall is torn down, a solid beam of energy blasts out of the opening towards them both. Core doesn't move the entire time, despite the ground underneath her disappearing. Sonic, of course, leaps out of the way and transforms to keep himself from falling. He turns to see the energy beam disintegrate everything in its path, even through the solid rock, so far that he can just barely see the light from the underground industrial area of Nexus as a pinprick at the end of the dark, smooth tunnel it bored.

He turns back to Core, floating in the air, holding the sword which is only slightly bigger, yet contained the mass of everything that was just around him. Behind Core, Sonic could see into the very bright interior of the Infinity Tower, seeing it filled with technology at such an advanced level that it rivaled Robotnik's. He turned his eyes back to Core.

She speaks first. "You destroyed the perfect being, a hedgehog slave transcending into ideal machine, ideal machine transcending into holiest of gods, and you did so being as crude, imperfect, auraless, soulless as you are. You defy logic, in no extraordinary way but as a limit to what extraordinary can be. You are the vile master of the ordinary."

Sonic knits his brow, but still smirks. "What? I'm ordinary? Well, I guess so. I don't care. So, so what? Did you have some sort of robot love for him? Or are you roboticized, your soul suppressed?"

She responds, "I am a virtual consciousness. An emergent electronic sentience. I have emotions and they are limited and controllable, but they are essential to my functioning. I... admired Mechanix. I analyzed him and programmed myself to approach the ideal of his beauty in form and action... I always have... I do not know the origin. It may have been programmed into me..."

Sonic butts in, "Mechanix was built, although I guess you know. But it was by Zaga. He's the guy that messed up the simulation. He's probably got you under control, and the Zexesh, soon, too. The guy that built your god, you and your civilization's god, he's against everything that god did, that the Zexesh did. I guess that doesn't mean anything to you, does it?"

Core is silent for a moment, before saying, "No. I did know that. I am aware of the contradictions of 'objectives'. I have questioned my orders, searching for more efficient means, although in action I have strictly obeyed them all. I am aware of the many organic value systems. I know 'good'. 'Bad'. 'Better'."

Sonic interrupts again. "Why are you telling me this? Aren't you supposed to kill me? Maybe you should take some time to think about your life and stuff."

Core responds, "I am not just a machine, Sonic. But..."

Suddenly, she swings her sword. "You are right. I should just kill you." Fire bursts out of her backpack and launches her towards Sonic.

.

Core's Second Proxy now always moves at her previous dash speed, and when she dashes now she will go fast enough to appear as teleporting. She can fly around in every direction, avoiding Sonic if he is chasing her, and chasing Sonic if he is avoiding her.

_It must be noted that the material on her sword will _instantly_ kill Sonic in regular form, and_ **_harm Super Sonic_.**

Her attacks in this round are:

- Swinging her sword around until it is like a circular saw, and throws it at Sonic for it to return like a yo-yo

- Holding her sword in one hand, she fires large energy bombs with the other, which then explode into hundreds of smaller radiating bullets. She can attack with her sword while doing so

- Swing her sword and let loose an expanding bubble of the condensed liquid metal, which she can pop to send waves of it radiating around

- Rapidly slice with her blade faster than Sonic can dodge (he must simply stay away), used in combination with slower slices that cut much farther through the air

- Dropping suddenly as she lets loose up to 40 missiles to hit Sonic at a time

20 more hits, and on the final hit, her arm is flung back, hitting her own backpack. It explodes, tearing off her arm and ripping through a large chunk of her back. The sword flings through the air, falling until it pierces one of the pyramid weights far below, completely obliterating it. The Proxy tries to move towards Sonic, only for its leg boosters to give out and it falls down as well. Sonic looks at it for only a moment, and then flies towards and through the hole in the wall.

.

He lands on the highest floor he can reach. He returns to normal form and takes a deep breath.

"Finally," Sonic says. "I finally made it here. It's almost over. I can end this war... end the diabolical reign of the Zexesh over the echidnas... Finally... finally return the world to peace..."

For a moment, Sonic cannot move. His mind races with memories of the world when it was in peace, long before Robotnik ever appeared, when he was just running amongst nature through the world, fascinated by the many fantastic landscapes...

He looks up, and once more, continues onward.

.

**Infinity Tower** [Act 1] (8/39)

The floor Sonic runs on curves up a wall and then upside-down into a large hallway, where Sonic must wall-jump up and down the spaces between the hanging columns, as the floor of _this_ room is electrified. And so this level begins. The many surfaces seem to be made of marble or crystal, with abstract and almost erratic zig-zagging lines separating differently colored sections, which themselves very gradually change in hue. There are layers and layers of such walls behind the walls, some of which are moving. There are simpler chrome-coated solids such as cylinders and cones suspended within the complex mass of alternating transparent and opaque forms, occasionally linked to larger metal structures networked throughout.

There corridors are filled with artwork of all sorts, such as murals, tapestries, monuments, paintings, and engravings, as well as antique literature, armor and weaponry, pottery, regal and ecclesiastic clothing and jewels kept concealed yet visible behind thick glass cases. As marked by the furniture and style of many of the rooms, it can be seen that the tower is actually a _palace_, the bombastic living quarters of the Zexesh throughout the ages. Indeed, some of the rooms are styled after the qualities of a certain regime, or even in total worship of one. They include:

- Zexa as man and Zexagalaxius as god,

- the First Zexesh although only a select few of them,

- the First Great Age Zexesh,

(- the New Zexesh were conspicuously missing),

- the Earthen Age Zexesh,

- Mechanix as destroyer and source of the Images,

- the Second Great Age Zexesh of each of the Seven Lands,

- and of course the current Zexesh. As Sonic expected, they each conformed to a narrative where they, the leaders of societies and the ideals they represented were protagonists against all of the conflicts they faced but inevitably conquered.

Sonic can not allot so much of his attention to analyzing the design of the palace, however, and must instead focus on the path ahead. It often splits and merges into itself, at first rather simply, but the higher he goes the more complicated it gets. Many small tunnels exist which Sonic can spindash into. Corridors curve around and intersect each other and some rooms are within others. There are many vertical tunnels and chasms which necessitate wall-jumping and work in the same way, branching off and suddenly changing direction, so that Sonic must carefully take a position, aim, and leap to the next wall. Some particularly large rooms involve running, jumping, spindashing and wall-jumping at almost every angle imaginable. His path will often be obstructed by objects that he may or may not be able to break.

As he ascends the tower, he will face many powerful enemies.

- There are a few battle robots, who endlessly attack Sonic with a combination of melee and projectiles.

- There are of course the Shard soldiers, who are now an elite force wearing thick armor and wielding powerful Black Stone weapons. They are not only powerful and quick, but smart, and can predict and exploit Sonic's movements for the most part.

- Every now and then, Sonic might also fight the very skilled swordsmen warriors he met on the mountain and on the battlefield, who are even faster and more skillful here.

All of them can take from 4 to 12 hits to defeat.

For the beginning area, looking out from the outer walls he can see the former underground city of Nexus, transformed into a highly technological and ritzy area, the opulence revealed in a fantastic display of changing colors, fine materials and bombastic architecture. The former ceiling of rocks is replaced with a massive digital screen, displaying a magical skyscape with twisting ribbons of clouds and ethereal constellations of stars.

After reaching a certain height above that, Sonic finally returns above ground and can exit the outer walls of the tower and return into fresh air. He finds himself in a large basin on the other side of the massive wall separating the rest of Nexus from the tower. Within the basin is a very complicated structure of shapes Sonic can only barely recognize, the most prominent being the many humongous pipes curving through the air and connecting to the greater machine. Often his path inside the tower will be completely blocked with steel blast doors, leaving him no alternative but to run alongside the charging lights on top of the serpentine pipes outside and to carefully but quickly platform through the nonliving mass of moving metal before he can find a way back into the tower at a higher level.

.

Although the wall and the pipes and the tower are all covered with lights, Sonic may notice a prominent glowing red hue on the higher parts. Once he finally reaches the same height as the top of the wall, standing on the highest pipe, he finally sees why. Large portions of the great megalopolis Nexus are now completely engulfed in flames, the smoke forming a massive cloud that reflects the red light back down. He sees the aircraft that attacked him before chasing unseen characters through the streets with spotlights and machine guns. Unobstructed by the great wall he can hear the explosions, gunfire and the familiar cacophony of the peoples' voices united and separated by combat.

He had completely forgotten about the people he met, about the promise he made to do what he was going to do anyway. Then, as Sonic stares out at that entire city he had traversed earlier, he notices at the very edge clouds of dust rising behind tiny pinpricks of lights organized in straight lines. He then sees jets zoom in and blast apart the echidna aircraft, before rushing by and exploding the air in a sonic boom. Catching a glimpse of their sides he sees the New Mobian army insignia, and is suddenly reminded of the greater Mobian War that he was fighting in not too long ago!

Sonic reflects on how he was thinking, as if he was the sole protagonist, traversing the entire world, overcoming every obstacle, to defeat the final enemy only as a resolution to a goal he designed. And upon that judgment of his former perception, becomes revolted at it. How could he ignore everyone who suffered, everyone who fights alongside him? He knows that the only reason he ever decided to fight for the justice he saw was because he saw suffering that he didn't want to see. And then, he remembers how this adventure, no... this crusade even began.

"Tails..." Sonic says to himself.

He turns and looks up the side of the Infinity Tower. Far, far above him still stands the great sphere, a shadow within the darkness of night and smoke. Yet while looking at it his mind goes elsewhere, back on to himself and his actions and thoughts.

"I've gotten so cocky... so reckless. I'm so used to this power, this invincibility... I almost forgot... who I am..."

Sonic looks at his hands, and for a moment, they seemed alien and deformed. He moves his fingers and they move, but he feels as if the actions are disconnected. He doesn't feel his feet or legs or arms or chest or head, and his vision seems detached from his eyes, almost seeming like it could just float away, looking down at this strange blue hedgehog in this very strange mechanical environment, flying up, past the smoke and clouds, past the Zenith, seeing the entirety of Nexus, and then Nexus becomes just a dot on a continent in a vast ocean that quickly becomes a few small lakes on a tiny ball floating in space, shrinking, shrinking, a dot itself, before disappearing into the massive darkness, the very darkness itself disappearing, and then there is nothing to see, nothing to be, nothing, nothing at all.

And Sonic blinks. He looks at his hands again and they are his hands. He looks back up at the Zenith, and remembering his battle is not yet finished, returns inside the tower.

.

The insides are no longer like a palace but instead seemed increasingly like a secret base, a military headquarters, with highly advanced electronics floating in the air without movement. Holograms flashing and walls moving by themselves, machines and lights increasingly simplified and futuristic, smooth, slim, angular. Curving paths are suddenly cut at angles which are again turned into curves. These closed corridors then open up into the large internal cavity, with detached elevators rushing up the sides, filled with soldiers and robots showering Sonic with gunfire. He wall-jumps up single walls and the floating machines and energy capacitors if there are any.

Upon finally reaching the halfway point of the tower, about three times the height of the tallest buildings in Nexus, Sonic finds the corridors he's in constantly closed by massive doors covered with laser turrets that he must bash down. His path is littered with traps, with false floors, slicing laser grids, lowering ceilings, and large defense machines with several layers of armor and weaponry. Yet he pushes through, and finally finds an eerie peace once he breaks through the last door in his way.

.

He enters a massive room that stretches from wall to wall of the tower. In its center is a large cylinder, within which are many spinning, balanced metal circles that make up the center piece of what seems like a giant clock made of very tiny, precisely moving pieces. Sonic jumps up the ledges on the outside, noticing the relative darkness of the room, climbing and wall-jumping up the block-like platforms until he reaches a flat ring around the top of the cylinder, which connects through a variety of mechanical limbs and wires to a large overhanging body. Dim blue lights glow from the eaves in the walls of the room, casting an eerie light upon the sphere in the center of the entire Infinity Tower, with its rotating irises staring straight at

"Sonic," Core says.

"Ah, so at last we meet eye to eye," Sonic says. "Do you really want to fight me? Before, I wouldn't have even asked, but... I'm not going to destroy you unless you leave me no choice."

Core stares back, unmoving, responds, "My essential function is to protect the Zexesh. Your objective is to attack them. There is no alternative to this outcome."

Sonic starts pacing around the ring, looking back at Core who revolves, following him. "Your diction implies some kinda hesitation. You said you're more than machine, and you told me how you questioned your orders, and all that jazz. Maybe you're trying to trick me, maybe not. But there's something, isn't there? Here I am, standing right before you, and you're still only talking to me..."

"I am analyzing you. I do not yet understand how you could have destroyed Mechanix. You are nothing compared to him. Yet you killed him. Your transformation does not explain it."

"It is quite simple, Core," another voice that is somewhat synthesized says from somewhere below on the other side of the room. With a single leap a figure jumps up all the ledges and lands on the ring facing Sonic. He wears a mechanical full-body suit, with pieces interlocking in a smooth, black design with an ember-like red glow and outline. His long dreads are tied together around his mid-back. His face is hidden behind a thin glass visor. "It's his speed. Black Energy only makes him faster."

"Yeah. That's right. And who are you?" Sonic asks.

"I am the leader of the Crystal Guardians, Pach," he says.

"Ah, so then after I beat the both of you, there's nobody else in my way, right?"

"That is correct," Pach says. "Only if you defeat us."

"I am ready. I have designed a way to eliminate his speed and transformation," Core says.

"Ha," Sonic says, "I sure hope so. I wouldn't expect anything less from the penultimate battle." He bends his legs, ready at an instant to move. "Neither of you seem to want to talk anymore... so let's just do this."

The leader bows before him. "Let our battle be an honorable one." Sonic, in a mildly delighted surprise, makes a slight bow and returns to his former posture.

And then he dashes forward.

.

[Act 1 Boss]

Pach will attack Sonic so fast that it seems that he has multiple bodies, each of which are going fast enough to have after images. Sonic can try and run, but the ring under him moves in the opposite direction at his exact speed as calculated by Core, keeping him still even though he can go to maximum speed. So Sonic can only jump, spindash, or transform on this limited 1-dimensional vertical line. He looks carefully at the images of Pach around him, looking for him about to attack:

- Running towards him and attacking

- Low attack (Sonic jumps)

- High attack (Sonic rolls)

- Energy explosion (Sonic must counter him)

- Briefly firing at him

- A tiny, purple laser that removes all his rings

- Radiating, rotating spiky circles of thousands of tiny bullets

Sonic can only hit him by countering. If he is hit, he starts running around the ring in the opposite direction that Sonic is facing.

.

- Meanwhile, an arm, which will be called Arm #1, lowers from the large opening in the ceiling from which most of Core is suspended. Attached as a hand is a large steel hammer which immediately revolves around the 'body' until it stands above Sonic. Sonic must then time his spindash _right when the hammer falls_. This is when the ring _does not move with Sonic_. Otherwise, he will be crushed to death. Once the hammer lifts from the ring, the ring moves to freeze Sonic's position again. The hammer then revolves to Sonic's position and attacks again.

This happens 4 times, in about the time it takes for Pach to run around the entire ring (actually quite fast) and start attacking Sonic again.

- If Sonic happens to spindash near him, he simply leaps over him and then runs twice as fast.

- If he jumps at him, he will roll under him and also run twice as fast.

Sonic can hit him if he spindashes, and then jumps in Pach's direction after he jumps. If he gets hit, he will immediately return to his hyper-fast attacking.

After every 4 of Core's attack rounds, she adds a new arm which repeat their attacks 4x, 3x, 2x, or 1x based on a certain turn delay and then alternating between those amounts. The order that organizes what arm number is after another also alternates between order of arrival or the opposite order of arrival, although occasionally it will be randomly ordered. There may also be one or several pairs of numbers with switched turn numbers (i.e. first, second) if it is ordered. The arms, listed by number arrived are:

- Hammer arm.

- A spinning circular saw blade parallel and just above the floor, with spikes on the side facing up. It revolves rather quickly towards Sonic, who might be inclined to jump over it. This is a mistake, as it immediately stops below him and lifts the arm from its elbow to slam the spikes up into Sonic. Actually, he must spindash again to deflect the arm.

- A laser cannon that fires a very quick laser beam at an angle to the ring, so that the laser hits Sonic's line at a particular height. It may be low, which Sonic must jump over, or high.

- A tall, flat block that slides parallel to the diameter, implying a jump, before suddenly rising perpendicular to the circumference, necessitating a spindash in the opposite direction.

- A jackhammer arm that rapidly stops the ring and pounds a piston into Sonic's position multiple times at high speeds, requiring multiple spindashes.

- A giant electrified metal yo-yo attached to a mechanical wrist by a chain that is tossed at Sonic from above or rolled across the ground before sharply pulled back (the ring is stopped for a lot longer here. Sonic must jump towards and over the wheel before it returns)

- A tall, flat block exactly like the last one, except they both go together. Sonic wall-jumps up the two as they close in and leaps out the top before they squish him.

- Rarely, Core will extend its eye above Sonic and fire a laser beam directly downward at him. The ring moves behind Sonic towards the eye, which revolves around the room to run into Sonic. So Sonic must go at top speed, turn, jump and attack the eye, or go the opposite way all around the ring until he can hit it there, although it sometimes unexpectedly turns the opposite direction to fool him.

.

If Sonic transforms into Super Sonic which he can at any time, he can simply fly above the ring and around the room, avoiding the arms. If he does this, Core responds by lowering a machine that looks mostly like a projector. It revolves around Core's body at increasingly fast speeds. It starts shooting extremely rapid pulses of light while producing scanlines on a single plane.

- It produces neon dots, lines, and much less visible transparent planes which produce a constantly changing cavernous landscape in the air that Sonic must fly through without touching the color, as the light comes from the sap energy. The safe path ahead may suddenly branch off or narrow around him.

- The projector can also change color to blue with slow energy while recreating the virtual landscape even faster,

- can change to yellow shock energy with particularly difficult timing required,

- or it can change to white which produces surfaces and shapes that Sonic can push against and jump off of.

Simultaneously, Pach will jump and flip through the holes and tunnels, being able to touch the energy. He approaches Super Sonic and attempts to attack him by pushing an explosion of black energy into his face. Time slows down just enough for Sonic to get out of the way or even attack back. However, although Pach seems to go slower, during this brief moment he may surprise Sonic by moving faster than him to avoid a counter or chase him down.

.

Transformed or not, Core will eventually grab large sheets of brittle metal and put them in Sonic's way so that he must break through them. Later on, she also puts down door-like traps that slowly close shut around a brittler connector that Sonic must move towards and break to get through. Although innocuous at first, Sonic will at random break through a sheet before suddenly finding himself in front of Core's eye. Its layered irises spin over each other and open up like spinning petals on a flower, revealing an inside covered with energy pulsating up hundreds of blood vessel-like conduits. The very center of the "flower" is the small but bright source of all of the tiny lights, connected to the main pipe exiting the eye back into the upper portion. Sonic can try to get out of the way, and when the entire thing snaps shut, be able to slam into it for a hit against Core. If he is not quick enough, it snaps shut around him and Sonic for a moment is forced into spin ball form but without being able to move. The tiny lights buzz around him and there is a very quiet hum, before Sonic suddenly hears an explosion inside his head, is blinded, and finds himself staring at his body being flung hard onto the ring, back in normal form. His out-of-body vision then snaps back into his physical head and he wakes up, all of his energy being sucked out of him (the battle returns to normal mode). If Sonic is quick enough, he could also attack the very center of Core's eye for 2 hits.

If Pach takes 25 hits first, he drops to the lower area of the room and rests. If Core takes 25 hits first, she still attacks but rises her head out of sight. Once both have taken that amount of damage, the first round of the battle is won.

.

The hanging body of Core draws itself up the hole in the ceiling. Sonic is about to chase after her when a small, glass cylindrical case is lowered by a tightly gripping claw down the center line of the room directly onto a circular depression on the cylinder containing the energy below. It is rotated several times like a combination lock, before the depression opened and energy suddenly got sucked into the smaller container at a very fast rate. It rapidly grew in brightness before all of the energy was located inside it. The side is locked.

Everything in the room begins shifting. The central column, ring and other such platforms lower to the very bottom of the room, opening up the very wide cylindrical space that the entire room encloses. The soft, almost aesthetic walls and their lighting at the top give way to bare metal, gratings, stone and harsh lighting with sharply cut shadows coming from more irregular and discontinuous structure within the walls. Sonic looks around, seeing Pach who looks back at him but keeps his distance. Sonic looks up, seeing the entrance at first, his attention is obviously caught by the large, complicated and mechanical mass of Core within what seems to be a very tall vertical space above this room. Core lowers itself around its claw and the energy container, reorganizing its chaotic tangle of limbs and bodies around it. As it locks it in deep within its body, energy shoots in lines throughout its every part. Now, much more rapidly it drops itself completely into the giant vat and then shoots out 6 limbs in two equilateral triangles facing opposite directions with planes parallel to each other, at the bottom and top. It finally lowers its eye again which locks itself behind the many spinning and translating parts, its body swinging and oscillating back and forth in the middle of the room while staring at Sonic. Sonic looks back to Pach, who is back in fighting position. Round two begins.

.

Core now expands its limbs to make a giant meshwork of platforms, horizontals and vertical tunnels, effectively, an entire landscape that fills the entire room and that changes often in giant clumps. It is all made from its many multi-jointed arms. It may also impose a secondary landscape using the projector, so that certain paths are cut off for Sonic, although this is not often. It moves some of its arms within the changing maze, with large blocks and spikes meant to seek Sonic and crush and squish him. There are also glowing currents of energy that make some arms carry shock energy before dissipating at the end in a burst of light and sound.

The energy container glows brightly on the opposite side of the room as Sonic. It is his goal to jump, run and wall-jump towards it as fast as possible, so as to pounce on it when he is close enough to the manifold pushing it through the body, delivering a hit. It will try to find the quickest route away from Sonic and if Sonic stays too long near it without attacking it, it charges up its energy and releases some of it in a radiating explosion.

Pach, meanwhile, is navigating this battlefield much easier than Sonic and tries to attack him.

- Once near him, he dashes through him, stops and turns and dashes again, while attacking. He lets loose lots of energy projectiles

- and striking attacks,

but due to a strong use of Black energy Sonic can see them coming and avoid the attacks.

- Pach might charge a lot of energy at once, enough that time slows nearly to a halt. Sonic can try to escape but Pach will follow him wherever he goes, holding the powerful ball of whirling energy tightly in his hand. Sonic must avoid the attack right when it explodes in front of him, as it will deal significant damage to him.

Of course, at any time if Sonic is quick enough he can catch Pach unguarded and strike him for a single hit.

.

Core may suddenly move its eye towards Sonic and open it up wide to encapsulate him. Sonic can attack it for 2 hits, sending energy reverberating throughout the structure, or he can try to escape. However, the entire body bends in a similar shape, trying to surround Sonic from all sides, closing in on him in layers, such that he has waves of hazards to avoid such as clamping metal and electrically charged rods before he leaves the entire mass which closed in on itself. Here Sonic can try to make a dash for the energy container up the branches of Core that push it against the walls of the room.

Pach may occasionally attack in ways that Core immediately recognizes and changes the landscape to accommodate it. For the most part, she opens up a horizontal space where Pach lets loose a lot of projectiles at Sonic.

- His multiple simultaneous positions each fire laser beams at Sonic,

- as well as crafting oblong spheroids that explode in a single column, although spinning.

- He also creates floating energy that he shapes into blocks of different shapes and lob at Sonic to platform around.

She might open up a circular space with multiple Pach images attack him at once from all sides, and Sonic must strike the real one who has slightly different posture.

Core will eventually reorganize her body again, which changes the way the landscape is patterned. There may be more hazards, sharper angles, more erratic turns, more dead ends, more tunnels, and so on. With different bodies she also uses different parts, such as [homing] rocket launchers, gun turrets, giant energy tubes, spike traps, etc.

Regardless of body type, Core may again move its eye out into the battlefield, but somewhere far away from Sonic. It then clears a direct line from the eye to Sonic, often vertically but it can be horizontal or diagonal at any angle as well, and then fires a powerful sap/shock energy beam. If Sonic is quick enough to move towards it in the tunnel, then in the paths around it as it's firing, he can land a single hit on Core.

This battle does not change whether Sonic is transformed or not, except that if he is trapped within Core's eye he loses all of his rings in normal form and just returns to normal form if in Super mode. After 25 more hits, Core freezes and does not change the landscape anymore, nor attacks. The energy flows out of all of the conduits and back into the container. If Pach takes 25 hits first, he forms an energy cube around himself and lies down on one knee, resting again. With 50 hits total for both, the second round is finished.

.

Suddenly, a voice fills the room. "Pach! Forget whatever it is you're doing and come to the Zenith immediately! We are being attacked-" There's an explosion and shouts. There seems to be fighting going on. Again suddenly something is picked up. "Sonic, my comrade!"

"Zaga!" Sonic shouts, smiling. "So you are here!"

"I have the Elders cornered. Do not fret! Our final victory is imminent!" There is silence again.

"Zaga...?! That must mean..." Pach started saying. He dispels his barrier. "You unsealed him, didn't you? I wondered why you targeted the Zexesh. So, it was his plan all along!"

Sonic takes a few steps forward. "He's right, in every way! The Zexesh have always oppressed the people, but you supporters refuse to question them in any way... You shield them from thought and arm them with your subservience, giving them the power to do whatever they want, believing in whatever they say!"

Pach steps back. "I am well aware of how my system functions, of every psychological, social, economical, biological, political and militant maneuver it uses to retain its authority. Eat this: I support it despite that!" He then leaps high above, kicking off the walls and entering the chamber above. Sonic could hardly keep up with his eyes, but before he gives chase he notices that the parts of the wall are pushing out towards him.

.

The third round begins as Core pulls all of her body up except for her eye. The door locks above and the walls push towards each other. Sonic clambers through the tightening space, avoiding literal dead ends until he makes way to the eye to hit it, which starts moving and shooting lasers at Sonic. Sometimes the eye may suddenly open and trap Sonic inside, much faster then it ever has before. Sonic should spindash when he's caught to deal 2 hits of damage, or otherwise risk death. As the walls are irregular, there are tiny areas where Sonic is safe. They close faster and faster, as well, but as the battle goes on Sonic notices that time starts fluctuating in speed from very slow to normal. He reasons that "the Zexesh are probably using the Black Emerald against Zaga." As the battle goes on, the entire floor rises towards the ceiling until it crushes Sonic to death. Before that happens, Sonic must land 5 hits and then the round ends. The walls recede and the eye detaches itself, exploding. The ceiling opens up.

.

Sonic climbs up the walls and jumps up there. He finds himself in a mostly blue room, chilly, with the many arms and mechanical parts of Core tucked neatly into compartments. He looks around, seeing flickering consoles and many, many wires and tiny flashing lights. He hears the churning fans blowing the frosty wind through icicle-covered vents. With his hands tucked in his armpits he walks towards the only door, which slides open before him. He sees many tubes and wires feeding from the sides of this newer room into a cavity in the wall where a glowing body is half-sealed in. It bears a lot of resemblance to the same structure which sealed Mechanix.

Just as Sonic enters, the door shuts and locks behind him. The lights in the room dim to darkness, and a few spotlights shine from below up at the glowing body which illuminates everything. Everything around it moves, displaces, rotates and the glow fades away except in her single slanted, narrow eye. Sonic sees that she is an android shaped much like her First Proxy, except the shapes are much less flat and take up a very smooth curved form. Her body is extremely sleek, with only a few hair-thin lines marking her otherwise perfectly continuous surface. Her spherical head is very slightly bulged in the front and is almost cute.

"Ah, so you've been preparing this for me the entire time. Let me guess, the Third Proxy? The one that finally uses all of the Black Stone energy you are connected to? The one that you will use with all of the extremely advanced intelligence that you have to kill me as quickly as possible?" Sonic asks.

"I was 'wasting' time, but now that we're alone, I'm just going to kill you right now," Core responds.

"I'm going to win, Core. You know I am," Sonic says.

"No, Sonic," she says. "No, you are not."

.

The final round begins. Core immediately creates an explosion of energy from within herself, with very thin channels for Super Sonic to fly through. It dissipates after about 50 "waves" that blast from the center of Core's body. The environment is completely destroyed, leaving an incredibly massive space within the tower without structural support. Many rooms on many different floors were burnt through, although not completely to the outer edges of the tower. Sonic looks upwards and sees the stars twinkling high above through small holes that make it all the way out of the building.

"You're attacking your allies? Destroying your home? Do you really need to do all that to kill me?" Sonic asks.

"My only purpose is to protect the Zexesh. I can do so, utilizing or destroying any thing I see fit to protect them flawlessly. So I shall do what I see fit to kill you. Understand?" she responds.

Sonic can now fly around this entire massive space. He now has a lot of room to avoid Core who moves around him to hit his blind spot. He can even reach the walls, where the space suddenly narrows into close quarters in half-destroyed hallways. He may find himself in a dead end, which would require him to attack Core to get out (or die). It's only in these hallways that Core does something different, which will be explained in a moment.

- Starting in the middle of the giant cavity inside the Tower, Core throws out both her arms, which transform into cannons and suddenly create a bullet hell of sap, slow, and shock energy, with different patterns being separated, fused, or even fused with both of the others. These tripartite energy attacks will essentially remove Sonic from Super mode unless he somehow still has a lot of rings. He can avoid all of the very tight patterns, as long as he stays far away.

- She often mixes this with suddenly flying up to Sonic and attacking. Her attacks are fast enough that in close-range it's unavoidable, and are strong enough that even Super Sonic will lose rings.

Sonic can attack her as long as he hits her while she's attacking him. Her backside is the most vulnerable.

If Sonic is not Super, he will probably be at the bottom of the mess, which is filled with very sharp splintered metal and a few iron girders just sticking out, enough to jump up the sides to the rooms on the sides, which he can climb through rather easily with wall-jumping.

- At any time, Core might stop whatever she is doing and suddenly twist her arms around each other, with palms locked. Energy flows up the helix through the palms into a growing fireball. Sparks rocket out of the small crevices of her hands, shooting straight out and burning the surfaces they hit (although not burning through). She then opens her palms and the energy beam blasts out. The ejection then exploded, and the remains of what exploded exploded as well. The directed energy suddenly scattered like a shotgun, and the chaotic force unleashed approaches him like a wall of death.

If Sonic is Super, has room and inertia he can still escape the powerful attack. Unfortunately, normal Sonic can only try to escape to a different floor, or jump off into the massive cavity, hoping to land on stable ground.

.

[Warning, disturbing material ahead.]

As mentioned before, when Sonic is in the smaller rooms on the outside of the spherical hole, Core does something different. That is, she finds an echidna hiding or escaping, grabs them, and forces them on their knees with their arms behind their back, often to the sound of bones cracking.

Core gets on one knee and then transforms her arm into a very long steel spike, incredibly tapered to an invisible point. "Stop it, Core," Sonic says.

Core suddenly thrusts her arm forward, and Sonic's eyes open wide as his body jumps forward. Core stops, the point right next to the echidna's head. They are crying or yelling in pain (or both). If they are sane, they beg Core for mercy. They beg Sonic for mercy.

Core says, "What would you do, Sonic?"

Sonic yells, "I'd let him/her go, you fucking bitch!"

Core asks, "Bitch? Ah, because my adoration of Mechanix fits your concept of 'love', and since Mechanix was 'male', I am 'female'. Ah, it makes sense."

Sonic is now angry and annoyed. "What the fuck? Just let her/him go!"

Core laughs, and says, "You are lying. You have killed people who fight against you. You have killed hundreds of people."

Sonic doesn't flinch. "They would have killed more than just me, and maybe get killed themselves. They wouldn't surrender. Don't make me seem like a bad guy when you protect the worst ones of them all!"

Core says, "You still killed hundreds of people. So, what you'd do is."

Core then stabs the echidna in the head. Sonic suddenly looks away. He hears Core slide the spike back out of the head. There were sounds of blood squirting and dripping onto the exposed concrete, or burnt carpet if the room is far enough away. Core then attacks immediately.

She might kill echidnas several times, except without ever again talking before doing it, just finding one and killing him/her on the spot. As time goes on, Core might suddenly charge at Sonic with the person's head still spiked (and the body might rip off). Even later, Core might just throw the person by the head at Sonic at high speeds (this is particularly gruesome). However, there are only so many survivors, so she can't do this all the time.

.

After 5 minutes, or 10 hits, or if another condition is met which shall be explained later, Core will stop moving for once. She suddenly pulls her body together and Sonic could see light warp around her. She flashed black and white, until suddenly throwing all of her limbs behind her as energy explodes off her body. It may seem to last a very long time and Sonic can even move around Core, but he cannot touch her without getting hurt. If there are lights nearby, they will fade out and flicker back on. In this transformed state, she can now only be attacked by Super Sonic.

There is a very large circle of energy around Super Core which works in gradients. The closer Sonic is to her, the more Hyper he gets (the more time slows down). On the outside of the circle, time is normal, however Super Core will be perceived to approach at incredibly fast speeds. Up to halfway, Sonic is slower than Core and sees her as going faster than him, while past halfway Sonic is faster and perceives Core as going slower. However, the difference is actually rather slight, and Sonic can avoid all of her attacks just as much as before, with a handicap depending on distance. Super Core's attacks are also much harder to avoid and in larger number, but they are not faster, just requiring more precision.

Sonic can avoid Core's physical attacks, although they are still fast.

_New moveset: hand-to-hand fighting! In close combat, pressing "up" avoids low attacks, "down" avoids high, and to avoid mid or all attacks, Sonic must "back". He should "forward" to dash back in, and press "A" to jab (quick but weak), "B" to send a right (strong but slow) and "C" to jump. He should avoid getting hit and aim for counters or combos. "Select" returns to normal platforming mode._

Super Core may occasionally intensify her attacks, especially if Sonic has hit her a lot, by decreasing the Hyper circle by half, forcing Sonic to get much closer or just escape. Her attacks are faster, and she uses much more powerful strikes that take a little more time to throw. She is more resilient to damage, although everything Sonic does counts as a combo when she returns to normal speed.

Super Core can still use her explosion beam, which now lasts much longer and goes much farther.

.

At the very top of the entire open space are a few holes that lead to the floors above. There are three types of areas within the 20 floors Sonic has access to. They are:

- normal hallways with offices, stairways, and so on;

- maintenance areas that require good wall-jumping skill to move fast;

- and hidden shortcuts that are mostly filled with Core-controlled traps like hidden spikes, laser grids, crushing ceilings, and so on.

Sonic must go up 5 floors before he comes to the elevator car. He may run into:

- a few normal scared echidnas,

- normal soldiers,

- and quite some Shard soldiers,

- as well as a few robots, who are mostly pacifist service bots,

- but there are a few larger gunner robots on wheels.

The elevator car is guarded by three Shard users. Sonic must plow through everyone while avoiding Core, who might end up killing everyone herself. Sonic can aim for this place while in normal form, but if he goes in far enough, she, as mentioned earlier, will transform into Super Core. She will try to push Sonic back into the tower cavity.

.

Once Sonic enters the elevator, Core tries breaking open the large blast doors but they do not budge. The car goes up. Sonic has a chance to relax, and looks at Nexus. He's high above it now, being able to see its outskirts near the horizon. He sees some large blocks of the city no longer glowing except by fires and car lights. He heard the sounds of explosions and gunfire even through the tightly sealed walls. He looks up in the sky, seeing New and Old Mobian fighters hunting each other in the sky, as large aircraft past each other, firing cannons that sometimes missed and ripped open the land below. Looking farther up, Sonic sees the sky more clearly, although still behind a veil of artificial light. He keeps on looking up the glass wall, seeing at first the large shadow of the spherical Zenith getting ever larger, an eerie reminder of the falling Death Egg. He then sees something within the elevator shaft, something falling down, straight down!

.

Sonic, whether transformed or not, _must immediately jump out the window_, as quick as possible. The car will suddenly be folded through the center by the falling Super Core, who reduces the massive steel room into a crushed tin can screeching down the glass shaft. Sonic, falling in the air, re-enters the shaft and lands on one of the walls, letting the friction slow him down before he begins wall-jumping up instead.

There are plenty of rings here that Sonic can use to transform into Super Sonic, and he should take advantage of this.

- This is because Super Core will now simply use explosions as thrust to slam into Sonic, and this will kill normal Sonic instantly unless he wall-jumps perfectly. Super Sonic can also just fly out of the way, although Super Core can also fly straight forward, too.

.

After Sonic gets past the 20 floors through the elevator shaft (some of the doors are open), Core uses one last explosion to send herself right next to Sonic. While flying towards him, she charges another explosion beam and uses her interlocked fists to punch Sonic straight in the back. He is stunned for a moment, his body slowly spinning through the air as they reach the top of their positional parabola, seemingly floating for a few seconds, with Core right next to Sonic at the apex, pulling in large amounts of energy into her attack with sap, slow and shock energies spinning around her arm, causing even more districts of Nexus to lose power, causing time to slow down yet again, making them seem motionless for even longer, her body again flashing black and white. Sonic stares back at Core, struggling to move his body as fast as he can to avoid the attack, but not moving at all for what seems like minutes.

Core disappears into light and flame, while everything below Sonic is pushed back. He suddenly gets a hold of himself and enters a corridor to the side, looking down. He hears a very loud creaking, looking at the ground, he wonders if the tower just moved. He then lurches forward and instinctively grabs the doors to his side, as the tower indeed starts to lean over. In a few seconds, he sees Shard users leap up below the blast and then use Images which suddenly shoot thick steel cable to the other side. After several such shots, the tower stops moving, and other echidnas arrive, firing other Images and quickly reconstructing what must have been a vital support structure. He looks to the side, to see where it came from, and couldn't believe his eyes.

Dominating the entire skies is the _Egg Tempest_, or what actually seems like an even stronger one with more and larger ships. They rain destruction on the city and the skies, forcing both the New and Old Mobians to change plans and fight back this new opportunistic foe. Sonic saw the insignia on many of the ships quite clearly. It was Robotnik. ROBOTNIK!

"So even dead he has a plan of attack. This must be from some base I've never even seen before! Damn it... I have to clean up everything he left behind, don't I?"

The light suddenly increases and Sonic looks back to the sides, seeing the outside of the tower glowing even more. He sees hexagons of energy suddenly projected in the sky in front of the tower, which light one by one progressively, forming a translucent shield that only makes itself known when more attacks simply explode or disappear in a burst of light. The sounds of warfare disappeared. It becomes silent, except for the voices of the echidnas below, and the crackle of fires nearby.

He looks down again. He notices a lot of the echidnas are just staring at the city or sky. Some are crying, and some just stare at the ground. Most of them are working, although they have the same expressions. A few try to increase morale. Sonic doesn't want to look at them anymore, and walks on.

"Core isn't attacking me... Maybe that airship attack destroyed her? Maybe she's planning something..."

He walks on through an empty hallway.

.

[Act 2]

Sonic climbs some stairs and walks through another corridor. He opens a door and enters a large security room. All of the echidnas in the room suddenly freak out, and most hide except for a few that step forward, although hesitating.

One of the echidnas, a rather small one, spoke first and resolutely. All of the others gained a little confidence but remained defensive.. "Don't be suicidal, god-killer. Without Core we need to manually control the entire energy system. Right now, we need the shields up! If this tower falls over, none of us will survive."

Sonic just walks through and chuckles. "Don't attack me, and I won't attack you. Wait, you said Core's dead, huh? Well then, I just need to-"

"Sir! We have a p-problem!" A man sputters from behind a console. The leader turns, walks and looks at the screen. His eyes open. "No, Core simply transferred herself onto the network... completely overriding all manual control! How is that possible?!"

Sonic looks around and sees many of the people returning to their posts, each saying a new alert. "She's shutting down the cannons, the shields! She's redirecting all of the energy to the Zenith!"

A large man opens a holographic screen and sees a feed of the outside. The barrage of cannon fire starts denting the barrier, deforming it more and more until it broke through. The tower shakes and everyone falls to the floor except Sonic who keeps his traction. The man yells, "Core's gone insane! Dammit, I knew this would happen! Activate the suppression mechanism!"

"It's not working, it's not working!"

"Wait! I've managed to get the ancient shield guns online!" "Inform the exterior defense groups! Defend the tower at all costs!"

Sonic, caught up in their response, snaps out of it and runs to the other door. Everyone stares at him. "I'll destroy those ships and then corner your leaders. I'm not going to attack you unless you attack me first, and I'm not going to compromise my goal. So come at me and risk death... or let me be, and I'll free you from your masters." He then runs out.

.

Much of the path inside is locked off, so Sonic has to find his way again to the outside of the tower. From there, he has to carefully climb up the exterior's narrow ledges and pipes. Although the platforming is precarious so high up, Sonic also has to avoid the shells, missiles and bullets that may skirt or even explode on the tower's exterior wall through the man-aimed shields which can only activate so fast.

There are a few entrances back inside, through narrow vertical chambers or a few floors filled with terrified people including soldiers unwilling to attack.

Sonic can fly or leap, if high enough, to the closest battleship. They are often very long with runways for smaller ships to fly off, covered with turrets and Robotnik's attacking robots. If Sonic is in the air, the turrets and missiles may be aimed directly at him. Entering the ship, he flies through the narrow enemy-infested corridors until he eventually reaches the larger rooms and the main reactor. The reactor is often surrounded by turrets and robots but Super Sonic dispatches these in a jiffy. Hitting the generator 8 times causes it to lose control and start exploding. Sonic then flies out or climbs high up the tower and jumps out again.

The night sky is now brightly lit red from the spreading fires, with very little light from the city or tower. Behind the clouds of smoke, hundreds of small stars become visible. Everything, caught between pale dark blue and burning bright red, is twisted in all the reds, blues and purples in between.

In between the battleships covered with robotic foes he hasn't fought in a large time (there are strangely no Egg Robos), there are medium- and small-sized ships that move faster and act as platforms between the larger ones. Some robots from some ships may leap onto the one Sonic is on to attack. After he destroys a ship, he should try to reach a higher plane of attacking ships so as to not fall all the way back into Nexus. He can and should return to the tower to continue climbing. Returned to the battlefield, Sonic must keep track of how the new enemies control his freedom of movement. He should eliminate 3 large battleships every so often, so that climbing the exterior of the tower doesn't become nearly impossible. He gets a little help from both Old and New Mobian aircraft, although they may kill each other instead of shoot down Robotnik's ships.

After a while, the smaller ships and flying robots follow Sonic back from his assault, pass through the barrier and reach the tower. He may have to constantly switch between vertical and horizontal movement from the tower to the ships as they break past the shield gun defenses. Although they are more easily shot down from the tower defense, the total force only gets closer.

.

It isn't long before Sonic passes the cloud level. Yet the Infinity Tower still continues for a ways up, and Robotnik's fleet of airships reaches up halfway to the next cloud level, although they are farther away up here. The security controls are weaker too and more doors are unlocked. Once past that, the inside is very reserved and almost completely empty except for a few very talented Shard users who Sonic can just avoid by staying outside. The Infinity Tower now spreads itself out from its original diameter, however, and Sonic finds himself jumping across platforms suspended under the large, curved supporting ceiling above him. Finally, he enters a very long rectangular corridor, a service pathway back to the center of the Tower.

.

At the very end is a galvanized metal catwalk with tall guardrails that hangs in a large jungle gym of vertical steel poles and criss-crossing bars. He sees that this is the interior of a space outlined by very large oblique columns emanating from the lower tower up to an iron net far above, their surfaces curved and twisting around in a spiral that supports the structure just above it. Sitting on this net is a massive sphere, whose bleak, dark underside is lit up by bright spot lights shining up from below, revealing its glossy surface. Finally, the Zenith.

He can barely understand its structure. Although it clearly has patterns of repeating shapes, they are of all sorts of shapes imaginable, all within each other. The closer Sonic tries to look at it, the more confusing and chaotic it seems. Yet at a distance it is clearly a sphere.

His eyes scanning above, Sonic then sees much of the scaffolding torn and bent in a single direction, leading to a smoking hole in the central column. There's a smell of a familiar oil. Curious, Sonic decides to visit it.

So he climbs up, either running down the long catwalks to a spiral staircase, to run along more catwalks to more staircases, or he can risk it and wall-jump up the pylons and onto the tiny platforms between them. Either way, he gets closer until he reaches the hole.

.

He looks inside, and to his utter surprise, sees the Tornado's wings completely torn off, its body bent against the wall, its engine on fire. Sonic rushes in the room, filled with rubble, and looks around.

"Tails? Tails, are you here?" Sonic asks. There is no response.

He runs to the pilot seat but finds it scrunched up, although empty. He sees an open door and runs through it. He enters a large, circular and open room. It is softly lit by large spheres embedded in the very slightly curved walls. The floor is made of a dark, shiny marble, which reach up as cone-shaped columns to support the floor above it. There are many horizontal platforms and slopes which lead up the higher floors, and even provide cover from the center. It is strangely designed almost as for someone to run and jump around the sides. Yet nearly all of the middle of the room is empty except for a statue of Zexa holding his hands up as if supporting the Zenith, in the very center and bottom. There is a wide cylinder of space above him, breached by four arched bridges 5 stories above that connect to a small circular platform, with nothing on it but a spiral staircase leading into the complex surface of the almost alien super-sphere.

Tails, wearing a gun-covered vest and army boots is looking at the face of Zexa, facing away from Sonic.

"Tails!" Sonic yells. He runs forward, his nostalgic memories suddenly swelling up, his feelings of happiness and fun.

"Stop, Sonic," Tails says, without turning his back. Sonic is stunned, but he stops. "...why, Tails?"

"You lied, Sonic!" Tails suddenly shouts.

"What..." Sonic begins, but Tails suddenly turns around. Tears drop down his face. "You said you killed Dr. Robotnik. You said that!" He cries.

Sonic yelled back, "He did die! I saw him die. I saw the corpse..."

"But you didn't know, did you?! Because who the fuck is controlling them, huh?" Sonic, who didn't know, tried to say something in edgewise, but Tails didn't even bother. "He's annihilating us... we don't have the resources for two wars! Damn it, Sonic, why couldn't you have ever just _killed_ him?"

Sonic shouts back, Tails' anger burning him too. "That's the past, Tails. C'mon, why are you like this?"

Tails argues, "What does leaving him alive prove but make him angrier and more determined...?! You think he ever cared about mercy? Your mercy costs us lives!"

Sonic says, "Listen to me, Tails, he's dead! Tails, I swear he's dead! He was blasted to pieces in space, even his Egg Hunter said so... he died after that..."

"Listen to yourself," Tails spat. He slowly walks towards Sonic. "Sympathizing with enemies, when you let your friends die... Maybe you wanted Robotnik back? Huh? Whose side are you really on, Sonic?"

Sonic never saw Tails like this. He didn't feel right talking back to him. He felt something was really strange... and cries out, voice cracking, "Tails, please! Please, I never wanted any of this to happen... from the very beginning, I just wanted to save you from Robotnik... from there... I just..."

"You don't understand, Sonic. I don't think you understand at all," Tails says, stopping, shaking his head.

"What are you talking about, Tails? What..."

Tails sighs and turns away. He sounds exasperated. "It's your fault... we all hoped if we just let you take care of everything, we wouldn't have to fight for ourselves. But we relied on you for too long. Your failure hurts all of us. You failed again and again to kill Robotnik, you didn't _want_ to, even though _he_ will brutally kill anything that gets in his way, or worse, roboticize them... Before, you beat his biggest toy and then ran away... Now, all you were doing was chasing Mechanix, who you couldn't even stop..."

Tails pauses for a second. Sonic doesn't say anything. He is overcome from his best friend expressing such hatred for him. He doesn't feel his body, or pay attention to what's around him, or what he should be doing. He can only see Tails, hear him say these words that start to cut deeper into him.

"Robotnik has always been alive. He attacked right after you entered the Floating Island..."

Sonic freezes. The words dropped like bombs, wiping away everything else in his head. There is only devastation.

Tails, not baring to look at him, still talks on. "You were fooled, into what? Something inevitable anyway? Damn it, Sonic!"

Sonic looked down, rubbing his face with his hand. He feels a burning sensation in his throat and eyes, and this feeling like something is swelling up inside of him. Pain sharply appears in his head and stomach. Sonic gulps, and says, "I'm not perfect, Tails... I'm just trying to make things right. I've had to fight so much to stop them... to stop them all... I'm so tired of fighting... this isn't an adventure anymore." He looks up at Tails who has his arms crossed and is looking away. Sonic's eyes start to tear. "I've been just a soldier, fighting Robotnik, fighting Mechanix, fighting the Elders..." Energy runs through Sonic's body, and in an epiphany, Sonic repeats, "I've just been a soldier... blindly following what he thinks is 'justice' in selective destruction!"

Sonic stops, and they are silent as he thinks. He speaks again. "I just want to run around with you, Tails. Just like how it was... But I can't. I'm the only one who can win against them. I'm the strongest there is, I have a chance... so I must constantly fight... I don't want people to die, but... I have to kill to make sure of that?! It never seemed right to me... but the more time I spend thinking about it, the more people die as I wait... I kill and I save lives? I don't kill and I end lives? How am I supposed to know what to do?! I want to save people... I try to be good and yet..." He looks away, holding back tears.

Tails sniffed. Sonic looked at him. "You're right... I... really hate this, too. I got so angry at you... getting angry people, ha, that's my job now! I'm a general... I demand perfection, no empathy for the enemy... I hold weapons, telling people how to take lives or escape with their own. I tell people to fight even if they die... I see them do it...! I see thousands of men who saluted me come back in stretchers and body bags! Fuck! The things... I've seen!" Tails suddenly screams, and tears the vest off of him. He even rips off his boots, throwing them far to the side of the room. He grabs his head and falls to his knees, growling in anger and pain. Sonic tries to step forward, but for some reason, can't bring himself to touch Tails. He wonders at that moment if he still hated him, and with his heart suddenly torn open, unwilling to harm his best friend's feelings, he stayed away.

"I'm too young, Sonic...! I'm too young to see people die! I can't think of anything else, anymore... It's always kill or be killed... every moment. Every second. It never ends! It never ends!" For a moment, he's silent. He then looks at Sonic, and says, "It wasn't like this. I remember when it wasn't! I..."

He cries.

"I can - I..." He rubs his eyes. "I...! I can remember running in Angel Island's jungle, under those bright green trees, the jagged pockets of light scattered across everything, the roaring waterfalls..." He cries out. "Aaah! I st-still remember, Sonic... I remember... back on South Island!" He sobs, dropping his face in his hands. He slumps to the floor. Sonic runs to him, but just as he stands behind him, something holds him back. He yet holds out his hand above Tails, but something fights him. He feels the most intense emotional desire to be compassionate, remembering the very same memories, to hold onto Tails and comfort him! But something dark, something very sinister, or so Sonic considered it, fought his every movement of his hand. And he feels like the light at the end of the tunnel was being closed off by a giant rolling wall. For the longest time, his heart was cold and shut off, only his mind observing the cold details of the world passing quickly by him. But now, when he finally returns to the world, his mind heavy with feeling, he is helplessly cut off from action by something he could not understand or stop! His hand falls. Tails says, "I remember when I met you... I remember you sticking up for me... Sonic...Sonic!"

Sonic, hearing his own name, for some extremely odd reason, feels disgusted. He feels hideous, cursed, and forsaken despite his very name being called out as a plea. He backs away. His mind reels, trying to understand why it is fighting itself when its emotions are so very clear, and he is left speechless.

"Why?! Whyyyy!" Tails screams. "Why did it have to come out like this, Sonic! I don't want to fight you! I don't want to fight you!"

Sonic falls to his knees and holds out his hands to keep himself from falling to the floor. He is completely silent, staring at the ground, sinking in an ocean of terrible, conflicting emotions. He tries speaking. "Tails... I don't want to... be a hero anymore... I don't want to fight anymore..."

They're both silent. Tails slowly stands up. He walks over to Sonic, who looks up at him. Tails holds out his hands. Sonic grabs them and is lifted up. They look at each other in the eyes, and in that moment everything in their minds is cleared away entirely. They hug each other tightly and say nothing. They both close their eyes, resting in each other's warmth through their fur and flesh lying on each other.

"Sonic," Tails says softly, slowly. "I love you... more than anyone... You're the only friend I've ever had... You're the only one who cared..." Tails lies his head against Sonic's chest, and sniffles. A tear rolls down his cheek onto Sonic's skin._ "_Let's forget about this... I want to go away... Far away..."

Sonic lets go. Tails doesn't, but slowly opens his eyes. "Tails..." He says.

"Once this is over... let's do it. But we can't stop now... We need to work together... We have to fight just a little bit more..."

Tails looks up at Sonic and pushes him away. His voice changes immediately. "Repeat that to yourself. Come on, Sonic. Did you hear what you just said? You don't get it! It was never about us. Nobody told us we had to fight. We don't need to be here... no matter what!" He pauses. "You only fight because you want to."

Sonic feels his heart drop. He feels that Tails, who was just holding onto him, slip far away from him. Didn't he just feel his skin and fur, his tears on his shoulder, the warmth of his body, his heart beating against him? Wasn't that just now? But yet, Sonic feels a force stronger than both of them, a repulsive but immutable power, with the certainty of gravity but in the completely opposite direction. The dark emotion within him, that pushed him away from Tails, seemingly reappeared with great haste and force. He feels abhorrent, but almost with pride. For some reason, his mind set itself on completing the mission, no matter what. He is compelled to explain, almost as if by an inner voice. Yet his voice is shaky and his thoughts unorganized. He says, "No, Tails. Robotnik would get us, too. And the Old Mobians, long ago, they enslaved our ancestors... It's a fight older than us... even Mechanix was a victim."

Tails' voice rose. "No, Sonic! Mechanix tore open Mobius' surface and then cut the planet to pieces! He's no fucking victim! But, but! Anyway! I don't know if that's true or not, that's the past anyway. I don't even know who my parents were. Why should what they do matter to us! Why do our lives have to be confined by the actions of others! You love freedom, Sonic, you must understand! Obligation locks us down! It forces us to fight and kill and fear and hate! Let someone else turn the crank of death, let someone else do it for once!"

Sonic couldn't help but yell back, "We're the only ones who can win! Nobody else can! We have to do it, and we have to – we have to stop them now!" He regrets what he said, but knows he wouldn't – he couldn't - say anything else.

Tails backs away. His eyes are filled with suspicion, and yet his brows reflected a tinge of pity. Sonic noticed this with horror. "No. No... No, Sonic, you've changed. Too much. You were never like this before. Your mind is so focused on victory that you can't see what you've left behind. Sonic, I don't - I don't feel like I'm even talking to _you_! You're leaving _me_ behind! Where is your mind, Sonic, to still think like this? Where are you?! I thought you were right here, with me!"

Sonic felt his throat tighten. He felt a horrible feeling, like his innards being pulled out of his body all at once. He couldn't look at Tails, anymore. He turns. He paces away, looking up, seeing the platform to the Zenith above. He freezes. "Listen, Tails, it's fine, it's alright. I just have to stop the end of the world again. Destroy this thing above us. Defeat their leaders, the Zexesh. Tell the people that their oppression is over, that they can live freely now. Then stop Robotnik... once and for all. Go around the world, clean up every base left. That's all. That's all. Once that's over we could really be happy, we wouldn't need to run away, we'd have the entire world safe and happy..."

Tails barked, "I know what it is, now. It's you. **YOU'RE** running away! **You**, Sonic!"

Sonic's heart gushes blood. His chest explodes, his head spinning in pain. He feels stabbed. He feels like falling down and just dying right there. He didn't think about what Tails said, trying to ignore it, deny it at all costs. He tries wishing that dying would make it all better. He reimagines himself just dropping dead, fantasizing that this would make Tails forgive him.

He couldn't avoid it. "You're running away! You, Sonic!" The stab wound exploded into flames, consumed his entire body. Everything he sees, everything he feels, every part of him, every memory, enveloped in the fire. It burns so hot because Sonic doesn't want it to be true, yet knows it is. It is like a deep abyss opened up below him, and everything he believed in, every other truth, crumbled and collapsed into it, disappearing forever.

Tails says what he is thinking. "It's you. You don't want to accept your mistakes. You don't change the way you think, the way you want things to go because you're scared! You... You think if you destroy this and that, bad things will stop and good things will come back fine. You think it's just them, it's just _these_ people, but you don't understand _why_ they do it. You don't understand why _everyone fights back_."

"You don't want to. You just want to win. You just want YOUR story to be the ONLY story. No, you don't even think there's 'other' stories, you only see yourself. You're scared of what they can do to you. If you lost! If it's not your story! So you run away! You run miles away in an instant. No, not with your feet, within your own mind, forgetting about where you are, only seeing that goal, only seeing the future you designed.

"Now? Where are you now? Where is your mind? 95% the way to killing the Zexesh? Hey, hey! Do, you see me! No, you don't see anyone. You don't even see yourself. Just the goal. And that's it."

Tails walked briskly towards Sonic, who could not respond or even move. "That's it, Sonic. It's simple. You are a puppet. You're just a... avatar, of some greater being in your mind, being played with like a toy. You call it 'Justice'. You know it's there, you know it's controlling you, but you do nothing about it. Because you think it's right. You don't see how it's changing who you are. And you think it's only about defeating the enemy! Hahaha! It was never about the enemy, Sonic. Let me tell you why."

Tails' lower eye lid twitches, his fists shaking. He tries to speak calmly although his voice rumbles, about to explode, "Enemies _appear_ for _you_. Sonic."

There is a moment of silence. Nobody moves. Distant explosions come muffled through the walls.

"I should have realized it's too late to make sense to you what's really going on, but... Your fights only start because you entered them yourself, Sonic. You take all of us down with you into your whirlpool of violence. None of this would have happened if you didn't fight."

"But Robotnik..." Sonic mutters.

Tails breathes in slowly. He walks over to his ammo vest and puts it on. "No, Sonic. Don't talk to me, anymore. You can't stop yourself, so I'm going to have to stop you."

.

[Act 2 Boss: **TAILS**]

Tails keeps very close attention of how Sonic moves. He always stays a certain distance away unless he sees an opportunity to pass Sonic above or below him. He attacks whenever Sonic is in the air or facing away, firing his assault rifle at him. A single bullet will kill Sonic if he is not transformed, and Tails is extremely accurate: unless Sonic is going near max speed, he will get critically shot.

Sonic can run around the entire room, up the slopes to the higher levels, even to the last platform, although the staircase is too narrow and tall to not get shot out of by Tails. If Sonic runs away, Tails will chase at 70% of Sonic's max speed, and can fly at 60%. While flying, Tails can attack Sonic regardless of what he's doing.

Here are Tails' attacks:

- Shooting the rifle, as mentioned

- When out of rifle ammo, uses submachine guns.

- When out of SMG ammo, uses pistols.

- At any time, use grenades with short timings.

- When near Sonic, using very quick slices and jabs with a combat knife.

- If Sonic is near a wall, Tails might shoot behind Sonic so as to hit him behind with the ricochet.

(As a note, all of these weapons can be knocked out of Tails' hands by attacking, and then destroying the weapon separately (except for grenades, which Tails must just use up).

- Tails then fights back with powerful punches and kicks using his tails for propulsion

- Flying, and then drop kicking Sonic

- Spindashing into him, and then jumping under him, hitting him into the air

- Spin attacking him from above

- Winding up his tails to thrust his body and outstretched fist into Sonic, sending him reeling

- Using his rotating tails as a shield (which damages Sonic if he touches them)

- Feinting and if Sonic moves the way he wants, attacking him then

If Sonic transforms, he will become invulnerable to all of Tails' attacks, and Tails, knowing this, will just try to keep as far away as possible from Sonic so that his rings run out.

As Tails accumulates damage, it starts showing on his body as he gathers bruises and cuts. He slows down, uses cover much more often and attacks much more fiercely.

After 25 hits, or just 8 hits from Super Sonic, Tails drops to the floor and puts up both his hands, yelling, "Stop, Sonic!" He gasps for breath.

.

After resting for a period, Tails gets back on his feet, although shakily, and looks Sonic straight in the eye. His expression has changed. The stolidity that was engraved in his brows and mouth are now shattered. His eyes are wide, pupils dilated, ears bent down. "There's no way... that I can defeat you..." he says with a shaky voice, rising in gasps of air. Sonic suddenly snapped out of his fighting mindset, again realizing that the opponent before him... is Tails. He looks at his face looking back at him and sees the fear that has gathered in his eyes. The distance between them isn't as small as a chasm, Sonic thinks. He reflects on how he kept on spin attacking him, cutting open his flesh, pounding his tiny body. He looks at every wound on his body, at the weakness in his legs, and most of all the terror in his eyes that he could just barely suppress, and Sonic realizes, "I did that."

"I wanted to do that." This thought remains in Sonic's head, without echoing, without fading away, consuming his entire awareness. Tails still gasped for breath, staring at Sonic. Sonic could only stare back, not thinking of anything else but this thought. He then heard Tails' voice from another memory, saying, "Where is your mind, Sonic, to still think like this? Where are you?!" He didn't understand what Tails meant at the time, he thought it was some metaphor. No.

"Why couldn't I stop? Why... why...?!"

Tails speaks. "The truth is... I fought you thinking I could bring you back, somehow. I felt so confident, thinking that I have grown so strong. I fantasized about this moment... where I could stop you, and then stop myself, resign from the military, and just forget about everything. I held the memory in my head during the many long... long, dark days I spent on the battlefield... I fought you, thinking if I won this battle, everything could finally end happily."

"But now that I lost... I know that... it was useless from the start. You... the things you've done... I don't need to say them. But you've faced so many circumstances that are just... beyond possibility. You showed me power that should never exist... You aren't Sonic the hedgehog anymore. I... I had no chance... I could never surpass you... I never could..."

"Tails..."

"You always went faster than me. You always covered more distance. Every step more than me, that you took... every extra step, all added up, over days... years... that is the distance between us now. Of course you'd change, you grew... you became something beyond imagination... beyond what's just 'good'... I can't even know who you are anymore..."

Tails, his head lowered, staring at the ground, shakes and sniffles. He frowns, despite fighting it, and his eyes tear up. He tries to wipe it away but he struggles just to move his arm. "People used to make fun of me... and now, people salute and applaud me. They cheer and celebrate me, while cursing your name against mine... they try to impress me, try to prove... but who, who knows who I am, nobody... nobody cares about me... it was good when you did Sonic... but I get it, you didn't really care either... I have to face this all... alone... alo.." He cries. "I'm alone again. I'm completely... completely alone..."

He lifts his hands and raises his head, but closes his eyes and screams, "AHHHHH!" and drags the scream into a haggard sob. He starts repeating "I can't escape" very quickly in a quiet voice, budging back and forth on the floor. His expression is of intense fear.

Meanwhile, the entire time Sonic did not think. No, he could not think. He had already felt his that his entire world had shattered, that the bubble of victory and justice that filled him up had popped so simply, suddenly, and absolutely. He now felt... empty. He had nothing to say. He wasn't apathetic, and yet, he felt no empathy, no sympathy, no emotions at all. He knew he should, he knew he most definitely would have before. Before. It was too far away to even comprehend now. Everything was now bizarre beyond terror, and increasingly so with each moment. How was any of this real? Sonic could have thought. He knew the answer, though, because it was the only place his mind could be. Everything is cold and solid and there, but yet nothing seemed to actually exist. Everything seemed fake... even Tails... especially Tails.

Sonic looks at him, crying, bleeding, curled into a ball, broken in pieces, on that part of the floor. Even the thought that he, _Sonic himself,_ did this to _him, Tails, his best friend in the whole world, _does not faze him anymore. That distance, that uncontrollable space, that giant abyss between him and Tails, was really what exists between him, Sonic, and _everything_. Sonic had never recognized it, he has not even noticed it until now, except maybe when he talked to the Commander. But he repressed it because it felt too strong. That was nothing. Everything, until now, seemed perfectly normal, just different to some degree. No. That world is ending now, and the true reality is nothing. Just nothing. And the first thing Sonic thinks, strangely, is something that he thinks scares him. "What if... he's right? What if it's really me... that caused all this?"

Suddenly, Sonic notices that Tails took a pill out of a vial. He opens his mouth, and in an instant Sonic swats his hand causing Tails to yelp in pain and let go of the pill, which in its tiny size disappeared somewhere at the far side of the room after tapping the wall. Sonic stares fiercely at Tails, who jerks his head up and cowers, his entire body shaking, his face going pale, his teary eyes open wider than Sonic has ever seen them. Sonic, realizing what he's doing, backs off and looks away, and stares at the ground instead.

"Don't... no matter what... don't do that, Tails..." Sonic tries to say. Tails doesn't respond. Tails slowly relaxes his neck and lets his head lean on the floor, staring into empty space. Nobody noticed the silence.

A muffled explosion comes out from above. Sonic, for a moment, feels a slight rush of energy that he now instantly recognizes as his body's reaction to the use of Black Energy in high concentrations. In a flash, he realizes that his objective is not yet complete, that the Zexesh, the Black Emerald and the Origin Device are still close together. He walks away from Tails, towards a window and looks below. Although they are above two layers of clouds, he still sees Robotnik's ships and the light from far below. He can't believe that Robotnik is alive... but whether it's him or not, his forces must be stopped, too. But how many are left? Could he possibly have to travel the entire world yet again, searching every possible place for more of his bases? There was so much more to be done...

Sonic looks upwards and sees that the moon is getting close to the horizon. It's been a really long night, Sonic thinks. He reflects, "Did everything that happen since sunset... really happen? _All_ of that...? No... even I'm not that fast..." Despite thinking that, he knows that he really is that fast. "I've never been that fast, though... Could... could I be getting even faster?" Faster than time itself, perhaps. He looks back at Tails, who is really so far away. "I've left him behind... long ago..." He doesn't think he wants to think about Tails anymore, but he did. And he did.

Sonic realized something more important than anything else. "He always comes back to me..."

At that moment, he decides to continue. He did not think any further about it. For some reason, something else, something completely different from the bleak desolation and endless destruction of what he just then felt like was the true normal, had flashed in Sonic's mind. Just from that one thought, it appeared instantly, that thing, an emotion, an idea, a way of looking at life and everything in living itself. He did not even know what it mean he was so eager to feel anything like it again after the chaotic suffering began.

He walks back to Tails, who is quiet but still staring into space. Sonic says, "Don't worry," in his mind, but it falls flat. "We'll meet again." "It's okay." "Please cheer up." It's all inane, Sonic thinks. "I wish this didn't happen." "I wish we could be friends again." "I don't want to lose you, either." Damn it, Sonic thinks. Annoyed with himself, he turns away and just says without thinking, "I want to come back..."

He wants to say more, to express what he's feeling, to reconnect, but instead, he refuses himself. Here?! Now?! He could save himself, save Tails, save everyone, but instead! And so Sonic thought on for a while, but he no longer reflected on it. It's done. He's moving on.

.

He runs up the slopes, jumps up the levels and reaches the small central platform above hanging outside as an open skylobby. He climbs the steps, the hollow metal bang reverberating once with each foot dropped upon it. In a matter of seconds he is away from the room, away from Tails, away from everything and everyone and everyplace behind him.

In front of his eyes is the underside of the surface of the Zenith. It is very, very finely curved even at close inspection. Incredibly, it's actually extremely detailed at such a minute level that it defies holistic perception. Sonic does not think much about it as the edge of the outside staircase directly meets the cylindrical wall around him. It is covered in conduits, occasionally lit by a single sphere with a soft red light. Soon, the staircase ends to a door, and inside is a large room. It is torn to pieces, with defense turrets broken into pieces and Shard users lying wounded haphazardly all around the room. A few groan, and some only look at Sonic and say nothing, but most of them are unconscious.

Before him is a large open space that leads into a long hallway. The hallway goes straight on against the interior edge of the Zenith sphere. It then bends with the curvature of the sphere and consequentially the floor rises out of sight. Sonic looks at the two gigantic blast doors crushed and squished still connected to giant pieces of the wall. He looks around the room again to see if the enemy was there, and then continued on.

.

**The Zenith** [Act 1] (8/40)

The floor is slightly curved laterally while the wall and ceiling are a single arch with alternating clockwise and counterclockwise beams. Glowing light shines between them, covering the floor with diagonal stripes of shadow. Occasionally, Sonic comes across a large, long glass window that shows the night sky with its clouds at an angle due to the circumferential corridor.

Although he can simply run at first, Sonic is suddenly met with several trolleys sent rocketing towards him one after another, which he can jump over or spin dash through. He then comes to a cart that slows to his speed ahead of him, with a mounted turret operated by an echidna wearing a dark uniform with thin, silver lines that give him a serious, dignified look. Behind him are four more echidnas wearing the same uniform. As the turret fires rapid shots at Sonic, two of the others lob grenades overhead. Sonic gets close enough and spin attacks it, destroying the turret and causing that echidna to back away. Then the two other echidnas run forward, one crouches and the other stands, pulling out their guns and send two streams of rapid fire at Sonic. Sonic again gets close enough, but if he spin attacks they simply back away.

Timed just for this instant, as Sonic lands on the trolley, another one up ahead moving in the opposite direction crashes right into it as all of the echidnas leap off just as the two explode. Just in time, a third trolley, longer than the rest, rolls back just as they fall onto it. Sonic, too, lands on it. One of the echidnas runs to the control panel at the other end and operates it for a moment before two slabs on the floor fold out as walls on either end. Immediately they attack Sonic. Some climb up the walls and then fire all around Sonic. Two of the five echidnas run up to Sonic and attack him directly with very fast and powerful physical attacks. The two that lobbed grenades take off the cannons on their back and fire large blocks of either slow or shock energy at Sonic, whether he is transformed or not. If he is, all of the other echidnas switch to ballistic or melee sap energy weapons. After Sonic takes out 3, one of them will run to the console and the other protects him with his life. By the time Sonic plows through the meat shield, the other has finished. He turns around, showing all of his grenades with their pins removed. Sonic has only one chance to run to the back wall, wall-jump off it and over the front wall. This is because in 3 seconds, all of the grenades explode and the fireball is mostly contained between the two walls. The impact is so great that the trolley is folded and ripped apart, crushing to death whatever was on it, even Super Sonic.

After that skirmish, Sonic runs down the long corridor alone again. This does not last long. Unoccupied trolleys rush towards him, sometimes connected together. As more pass by, some of them hold crates and scrap metal on them that require Sonic to quickly platform over or even through them before he is carried back the other way. As if that's not enough, he starts coming across stationary sentry turrets that fire either very rapid normal shots or less rapid explosive shots. Although they fly by rather quickly at first, he soon reaches ones that use the beams covering everything but the floor as tracks to move at Sonic's pace while flitting to either side of him. Sonic can only destroy these if he can jump on top of something on the trolley to hit the turret just as it reaches the top of the ceiling. Otherwise, more of them start piling together, giving Sonic a lot of trouble.

At this point, Sonic should be about a quarter way around the sphere, running perpendicular to the surface of Mobius so very far below. The zig-zagging beams disappear and the arch around Sonic wraps to the floor itself until the corridor becomes a tube. The surface is smooth and translucent, revealing mostly the solid, gray planes of the underlying geodesic scaffold as well as occasional peaks beneath it to the energy transfer structures which give off the light. The diameter of the tube slowly increases.

_In this area, Sonic can, while running, move around the inner circumference of the tube. To do this, the player must simply press Up or Down._

The peace is quickly removed as a large blast door lowers ahead of him. He easily passes through it, but he comes across more blast doors shutting at even faster rates. For some he has so little room to clear them that he has to spin dash through. The doors don't just shut towards the direction Sonic is running on, but at every other angle as well. As Sonic manages to get even farther, the single gates are mixed with double gates that close towards each other. Although they do this one by one, they start closing in quicker, shorter sequences

..

After a bit of that, no gates stand before Sonic for a short while. Suddenly, a small cart on wheels zooms past him but slows down to his speed. Sonic then hears a voice from a speaker box on the cart.

"Do not think our battle is over, Sonic."

"Core?!" Sonic asks. "I thought-"

"I am nothing more than data, but as data I control the entirety of Nexus. As long as you are in it, I will attack you. If you want to delete me, you must destroy Nexus itself."

"Psh! I'm done fighting you. Try and kill me if you still think you can, but I'm not even going to slow down for you anymore."

.

Core is silent. Suddenly the cart stops and explodes, but Sonic avoids it easily. Again the gates ahead start closing, this time even faster and with more in number. A new type of gate closes, consisting of multiple triangles that rotate towards each other like a closing camera shutter. Sonic must jump perfectly through the small hole which of course changes its position with each new gate. He also runs past rotating spokes which either increase in speed or density as he moves on.

The final gate is already closed except for a hole in the very center that he jumps into. It is rather thick and Sonic rolls through the tube for a moment before popping out the other side. As soon as he lands, a current flashes through the circular wall behind him, creating a thick barrier of sap energy. Spikes jab out of its surface and the wall starts rotating and chasing Sonic from behind. In addition, slow energy bolts zip from the wall down the sides of the tube and the irregular areas in between suddenly flash, creating fields of slow energy that Sonic should avoid by running around the tube. The bolts come out from the chasing wall at long, regular intervals, and eventually start flying through the air itself, creating vertical walls that Sonic must jump over or run around. After a while of avoiding that, the wall begins charging and shooting beams of shock energy so that Sonic must almost always be on the move.

Finally, Sonic sees an exit from the tube and takes it. It is a catwalk which takes him through a cramped maintenance area before suddenly exiting outside. He finds himself 3/4ths to the top of the sphere, its curved surface more horizontal than vertical to the metal grating he runs on.

Suddenly, the surface dives away and Sonic stops to see where it goes. Far in the distance he sees that much of the sphere's surface dips beneath where it should be. In fact, there is an incredibly large gap in what would typically be the sphere. It is funnel-shaped, its walls smooth and vaguely reflective, everything emanating straight from a small central hole at the base of the pit. Three thin pylons support a small convex mirror which stands far above the sphere, almost invisible in the night sky. Sonic recognizes it as the cannon which had fired those gigantic laser beams at him when he was approaching Nexus.

.

Seeing that the hole enters deep into the Zenith, he jumps onto the slope and runs down. There is nothing in his way and so he quickly picks up speed. He lets himself just fall into the hole which leads deeper still with its walls of bare metal scaffolding with no intent for aesthetics. Sonic feels uneasy because of the ease of how he had gotten there and enters a small alcove. Just as he hides behind it, an energy beam blasts up the hole as fast as light, widens from the tiny mirror held so far above and is concentrated into that one, single, massive beam which fires off far into the sky, perhaps even into space.

And so Sonic, in order to progress down the barrel without getting himself incinerated (even as Super Sonic), must wall-jump _down_ it as fast as possible to each alcove he can find. The space between them increases in size but eventually Sonic reaches the center of the cannon, a large room with many vents spewing cold air that drifts along the bare metal floor. In the center is a large glass cylinder suspended between two mirrors containing a spinning plasma within it. With the only door in the room sealed shut, Sonic can only smash the glass until it breaks, in that instant letting the plasma escape in an explosion that sends Sonic reeling into the wall.

A moment later, he finds the room and gun torn to pieces. Behind the walls are the many exposed interlocking structures and tubes that keep the sphere together and carry the energy around. Before he can get a good look, the Zenith starts rotating in its socket and Sonic jumps across what little is left of the wall and ceiling to keep from falling as everything turns upside down.

.

In this new perspective, however, he notices a nearby tube that rises towards the distant center of the sphere, obscured behind many complicated alien structures. He climbs up what surfaces he can reach, through the broken walls of the tube, onto a small catwalk with a door sealed shut. Above him are suspended vertical pylons and tubes that give him something to wall-jump on. And so he uses them, wall-jumping up them and off the walls. However, he soon comes across streams of sap/slow/shock energy which fly up some of the surfaces. The long stretches of vertical surface are reduced and size and Sonic has to carefully wall-jump between the streams of energy as he climbs up the tube. He leaps between gaps in streams in the air and even wall-jumps over small arcs of energy on the same wall. Some of the platforms begin moving, as well as the energy itself which translates and bends around. At the very top of the long and harrowing climb the hazards are removed, leaving nothing but wall again. The tube ends with the walls coming closer together by large steps, such that Sonic must wall-jump horizontally far to clear the small ceiling above him.

At the end of that tube he exits the small hole and finds himself once again on horizontal ground. Looking around, he finds that there are many small holes on the inner surface of another sphere which is still immensely large. Energy streams out of some of the holes into tubes floating in the air that redirect them in other directions. Looking up, Sonic sees these smaller tubes as well as small machines floating still around a central machine. Its thousands of parts, some floating and others connected, rotate, revolve and translate in wide, sometimes complicated, but definitely not random patterns. He cannot tell the larger shape or design, and even the smaller moving parts themselves seem elaborately and even excessively complicated. Beams of light shoot through the tiny appearing and disappearing spaces from something even deeper within. It is fascinating, almost ethereal, but at the same time it is immensely eerie for there is not a single sound made besides an omnipresent, quiet buzz.

Sonic is too far away to jump to the floating platforms, but he sees a nearby walkway that abruptly stops somewhat near one of the glass energy tubes. He runs up its curved side, across its flat top and leaps to the tube. From here, he jumps to a small structure holding a soft light sphere. And so he makes his way towards the machine, jumping between the tubes and platforms, avoiding the occasional open-aired streams of energy. Some of the "islands" are rather close to each other, but at other times Sonic may find himself at a "dead end", such that he'll need to backtrack or perhaps even make a long leap to a platform below that leads to a better "island chain". Of course, if he has enough rings, he can simply fly as Super Sonic through all of this.

Upon reaching the machine, he finds himself in a slightly better position. Although the space between the platforms is just as large as before, the platforms themselves move and are much more varied in size. Some are so large that Sonic can spindash or even walk inside of them. The largest have moving platforms even within them! But also there are platforms that are so small that Sonic only has enough room to stand on, or even only wall-jump off of. There are also a few platforms that move rather rapidly, but if Sonic manages to land on these he will often find that they are shortcuts.

As he gets deeper, there are less floating platforms and more that are connected to each other, often by long pylons. Although he doesn't need to worry about clearing gaps anymore, he now has to worry about not getting squished as the parts start moving closer and closer to each other (but leaving a hair's width between them). There are pistons which pump rapidly up and down, pylons and gears that rotate towards each other, and sequences of platforms whose trajectories mesh together in a tight fit.

.

Eventually, Sonic gets deep enough in the machine where every part is against every other part and he must be constantly moving so as to not die. Being transformed will only help his speed here. His goal is close, however, as the beams of light flash on wider than before, with the next area revealed in glimpses between the unknown complex. Sonic moves with all his speed and wit towards these holes and after clearing a final gauntlet of closing spaces, leaps through it and lands safely on a steel girder.

Looking around, he sees that the machine still leaves a large sphere of open space within it, and Sonic is amazed to find that he still cannot see the center although light streams outwards from it. Above him are octahedrons, dodecahedrons and icosidodecahedrons sometimes connected by complicated manifolds consisting of triangles and pentagons, having "caverns" and "mountains" as well as "plains", with every plane and every closed solid containing a viscous, dense, yet iridescent honey-like substance. Between all of them are a network of transparent, branching tubes that are smaller and more serpentine than those from before. At their openings, the energy is sucked inside and carried throughout the complex system.

Sonic finds an opening nearby and wall-jumps off the narrow edge of an energy-holding plane into the tube. He wall-jumps up until the tube levels out and runs at full speed, avoiding the streams of the "honey" that drift through the air or across the sides. Upon closer inspection, he notices it is filled with very fine Black Stone powder.

After a very short while, he notices in the background that from the still-unseen center, some of the planes glow bright and the adjacent planes subsequently glow. This carries on rather quickly throughout the membrane and structures until it reaches a tube, where all of the gunk on that plane is very quickly sucked inside and even more quickly shoots through the tube like an action potential, still glowing. If this happens on the tube Sonic is in, he'll find that the ensuing wave of Black stuff slows down a little behind him, apparently putting him in Hyper mode. However, he cannot outrun it for long and must escape through a branch to another tube to survive it. When it passes, he returns to normal. The closer he gets to the center, the more often this happens.

.

At the end of this area, the planes no longer contain the substance and greatly decrease in size. The tubes end here, opening up into a very dense structure of what now seems like crystals. The light is brighter than ever now, sparkling radiantly into many different, bright colors. Sonic runs through a tube directly into the crystal maze.

The path often splits into many directions, and is rarely flat (and safe). Instead, the sharp vertices from the tiny planes makes spikes almost everywhere, from the ground, ceiling and walls. Although he can simply jump or roll under them at first, Sonic quickly finds himself in long caverns with safe areas being remote between all of the spikes. There may be vertical drops where Sonic must move around as he falls to avoid the walls and spires from below. There may be vertical climbs where Sonic needs to carefully wall-jump on the flat areas between the spike beds. Worst of all, there are horizontal areas with the only way to cross them being thin walls, sometimes moving, with spiked tops that force Sonic to only wall-jump on their sides onto others ahead. Given the cave-like nature of this area, all three of these areas are mixed together very often. To make matters worse, as Sonic nears the very center he find the crystal walls starting to _move_. This can be as little as a slight oscillation, to as dangerous as crushing ceilings, floors and walls, to as ridiculous as the entire area constantly changing shape around him.

To Sonic's delight, he finally comes across a metal structure within the crystal. He runs across its stable, flat floor, through hallways of design similar to the outside of the Zenith, until he comes to yet another wide open sphere-like space. The room is very bright, the walls mostly crystal, dazzling with vivid color. Finally, Sonic sees the other side of this space which wraps around a central sphere which seems like the Zenith itself in miniature. What would be the cannon faces directly before him, connected by a wide bridge to where he stands. Sonic, looking around, notices a giant, shattered hole in the crystal, as well as many streaks and craters in the spiky surface that obviously reflect a battle.

.

While looking at the damage and walking down the bridge, he suddenly hears, "Don't move an inch, Sonic!"

Sonic, instantly recognizing the voice, looks to his side to see none other than Knuckles glide through the air from another entrance and then drop onto the bridge. Although he wears the same gloves and shoes as before, his chest is now covered with thinner, spikier white lines radiating from the first white crescent that is around his upper chest. It looks like an explosion. His dreads, too, are now marked with white tongues of flame.

"It's been a long time, Knuckles," Sonic says, smiling. "I almost forgot about you."

Knuckles stares back without changing his straight face. "I haven't. My people, my world came back to me, but I knew the real battle would soon begin. My lifelong loneliness disappeared like a dream, and I trained nonstop to prepare. Because I knew from the very start that you... **you**... would make it past everything, would ruin all of this, like you always have..."

"Whoa, whoa, c'mon!" Sonic says, holding up his hands. "All I've ever done is try to save Mobi-"

"_NEW_ Mobius!" Knuckles interrupts. "You've done nothing but ravage _Old_ Mobius... both before and after the resurrection! You're the greatest enemy of my people... and you've always been MY enemy!"

Sonic sighs. "Man, you're thick-headed. Or _faithful_, I guess. As much as I'd like to convince you that you're just being misled again, I'm getting sick of trying. You helped me and Tails..." Sonic stops for a very short moment, recalling what he did to Tails, and... "...defeat Robotnik. But I guess that's it, huh? I don't know why... I never hated you. Even when we fought. I thought it was mutual. You really hate me?"

Knuckles spits. "So you looked down on me all those times, when I tried my hardest to beat you down? Yes, I used to be reckless, 'thick-headed', but I always... I always hated you. I hate your carelessness. I hate your high ego. I hate your apathy... your voice... your face. You... you make me feel sick. And then you destroy my people's ruins, take and exploit the sacred Emeralds, even the Master Emerald now! You kill my God, you ravage my people's army, you encourage my people to destroy their own society, you come all the way here to kill the sacred masters of my long lost people...! But this is it! No more!"

"Ever since the resurrection, I trained. I trained harder than I ever have, because although I hate you, I know you are strong. Stronger than anyone or anything, because you are the god damned Devil! But you aren't stronger than me. Not anymore."

"You've gotten this strong only because of the Emeralds, which make you almost invincible anyway. I know how strong you can get, I can go Super, too. But unlike you, I don't need to. No, I'm stronger than you, and I don't have a single Emerald, a single Power Ring! I won't let you hurt even one more member of my family! You can't fucking take any more away!" He stops talking and breathes heavily, baring his teeth.

Sonic smirks, and replies, "'I can't win'? I've heard that so many times, Knux, but, well, it's still just as funny."

Knuckles looks like he's about to explode, but he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a few seconds. Opening them again, he stares at Sonic with a fierce determination. "No, I wouldn't expect anything less from a heartless bastard like you. I'm done talking. Let's finish this." He raises his fists.

Sonic looks at Knuckles for a moment. He remembers looking at him in the past, in the same way, right before they fight, but for some reason, he still gets the feeling that there was a friendliness behind that face. That they were rivals.

Looking at him now, at that same face... something had changed. It was exactly the same face, exactly the same expression even. But behind it, Sonic could only feel coldness, a very dark coldness and a feeling that his life was being targeted. It didn't feel right. It didn't feel... normal. And then Sonic was again reminded of Tails, suddenly feeling that same feeling of that giant abyss between them, of reality itself being wrong, of being in a nightmare but suddenly realizing you are not asleep...

No, it couldn't have always been like this. It wasn't like this, it wasn't! It was never so...

Knuckles sprinted towards him.

.

[Act 1 Boss: KNUCKLES]

The battlefield consists of the bridge, the metal walls above the passages on either side and the space in between. The door onwards is closed shut. Knuckles can climb up the walls, leap off and glide all of the way to the other side, although he is more likely to stop abruptly and attack from above. Although Knuckles can attack from a distance, he more often than not moves directly at Sonic to attack him at close-range.

His attacks are:

- Punching from long-range. If Sonic is in the line of his fists, regardless of where he is at, he will be hit by a very rapid wave of compressed air from the punch.

- Punching in mid-range. The punch is slower, but once it hits the air, the impact is great enough to cause an explosion of wind that hurts Sonic.

- Dashing very rapidly to close the distance between them almost instantly. He ends the dash with a strong punch that, if it connects, sends Sonic flying back.

- Punching rapidly at close-range. This activates Sonic's close-range fighting mode. Knuckles' jabs are enough to stun Sonic and his normal right is enough to hurt him considerably. His punches are very fast, at the limit of Sonic's evasive ability and sometimes even beyond that. Knuckles will start a combo whenever he gets the chance, although there is a certain rhythm to it that Sonic can exploit.

- Knuckles' most powerful attacks are a wide right he saves for when Sonic is recovering from damage

- or a devastating uppercut that sends Sonic flying when he crouches below him.

- Knuckles can feint very effectively by assuming an expression of bloodlust before crouching or sidestepping to hit Sonic as he is stunned by confusion.

- Every low hit in Sonic's gut will slow him down until he can barely move,

- and every high hit in Sonic's face will eventually cause his eyesight to be enveloped in darkness until he is knocked out cold.

Knuckles has an extreme amount of stamina, so unless Sonic avoids nearly all of his attacks and constantly pours combos on him, his guard will not break. His only opening is while he's attacking; that is, Sonic should aim for counters most of all.

- While gliding in the air, he may drop above Sonic while swinging his fist, which with gravity can deal heavy damage to Sonic.

- Or, he might just glide directly into Sonic.

- He can also spindash or spin attack.

When Sonic is nearby, he always holds up at least one fist if not both as a guard. As mentioned, this guard cannot be broken unless Sonic is constantly throwing punches for a long time.

Regardless of how he manages to strike him, after 16 hits, Knuckles backs away.

.

"As I thought, I can't hold back," he says.

.

He then throws his fist down on the bridge in a blur faster than any of his previous punches. The entire steel bridge then suddenly bends around, cracks and breaks into pieces. The shockwave of the punch is enough to shatter all of the crystals in the large room, filling the air with glittering shards. Sonic jumps just in time and they both fall to the true bottom of the room.

The battlefield is now the entire sphere-space, although its surface is irregular and filled with crevices and bumps. Like Sonic, Knuckles can also run around the entire surface even at the top, as long as he goes fast enough.

His attacks are now of a much higher level, to the point that _even Super Sonic can be hurt by most of them_, and he has a few more, too:

- The long-range punch now is now not just a line but a spread shot, and he can throw many of these at once, following Sonic from far away.

- The mid-range punch actually causes a fiery explosion that is larger than the wind explosion. He either throws several of these punches to build the explosions off of each other, or dash through the flames, carrying a fireball on his fist to punch either directly into Sonic or to throw at him if he manages to avoid Knuckles.

- His dash is now as fast as Sonic's max speed.

- His close-range fighting is much faster, much stronger, and more intelligent. He may even "give" Sonic room to counter, just as a feint to counter his counter. Sonic must be constantly at the peak of his awareness and speed to just avoid his attacks, as otherwise at this range he will be very quickly overwhelmed. Knowing this, Knuckles always tries to bring Sonic into this range whenever he can.

- His gliding is now not just parallel to the ground and he can dive, rise, loop and turn at much higher speeds.

- He can suddenly remove himself from spinball form to throw a powerful spinning punch that does a lot of damage.

- He can throw a punch into the ground, sending a large wave that spins around the room.

- He can dig through the ground and then pop out under or near Sonic.

.

After 24 more hits, Knuckles drops a knee to the ground. "You bastard... How did you get so strong?! It's the Emeralds... that you stole! Damn you... damn you!" He punches the floor with incredible ferocity, tearing open a hole in the floor that spans the entire diameter of the room. Both of them fall into it until they land in a large cavern with metal passages traversing the wide open space.

Knuckles punches his fists together and the entire room shakes. He yells, "I'll never let you win any longer! I'm going to kill you right here Sonic!"

.

- He runs toward Sonic while throwing out immensely powerful punches. The punches launch massive fireballs several times his size that rocket towards Sonic. Upon hitting a surface, they obliterate it in a gigantic explosion. In close-range, his fists have lost their compactness and speed, being easier to avoid. They make up for it in sheer power, with just one combination being enough to kill Sonic in his normal form.

Sonic can attempt to run away through the many crystal caverns and constructed passages, but Knuckles will unceasingly chase him while throwing attacks. His attack pattern is now very simple: throw everything he has directly at Sonic, whether from far or up close. Sonic can counter, surprise him or even attack him directly, but Knuckles will take each hit as if it was nothing and continue attacking him back.

Eventually, after a few minutes or in less time with every 5 hits Sonic lands, Knuckles slows down and his power weakens. He still tries to attack, however, but in a few more minutes he can hardly move although his punches are still impressively powerful. In just a little bit more time, Knuckles is immobile. Whether Sonic hits him or not at this point, he falls down.

.

"I can see now... why you're so strong. Why you never lose..." His voice is weak, but it is not defeated. Strangely, it has awe. "It makes sense now. Everything... everything makes sense now..." And then, he passes out.

.

Sonic looks at Knuckles for a moment, but without reflection he immediately moves on. He goes to the hole, climbs up its broken sides back into the spherical room. He runs up the wall to the ceiling and jumps at an angle towards the center sphere. He lands in front of the door and finds it dented and burnt. He charges his spin dash and blasts through it.

He walks through a hallway with tall columns in the walls with the only light coming from farther within. The hallway seamlessly changes from stable orthogonals to curving and spiraling forms swirling between compositions of flat shapes, which at first create a helical tunnel. Sonic runs through it with its rays of light meshing over each other. It then reveals itself as one of multiple outgrowths from a central basin floating within a larger spherical space. From its edges massive arches stretch and form a ceiling that completes the basin as an implied sphere. However, several portions of it are damaged and missing, a few of the pieces scattered on the floor below.

Everything is bathed in ever-changing colors of light coming from the surface of the outer wall. It consisted of a projected image of 3-dimensional solids and irregular blobs floating, transforming, fusing and fissing from each other, much like the background of the Special Zone.

Sonic sees that the basin is simple, made of trapezoids and four-sided pyramids. It is all centered around a platform facing opposite of him, where elaborately designed machinery emerge from the floor to form a single pedestal. Sitting on the staircase before it with his staff in hand and the Black Emerald in another is Zaga. Lower than him are the Zexesh, strewn across the ground, 4 of which are unconscious. Two have their arms and legs bound, struggling against their restraints, while the last one is curled up in a shallow pit near the edge. Their honorable demeanor, clothing and bodies were trashed and humbled. Looking around the basin, Sonic suddenly notices somebody lying right next to the entrance. His face is unfamiliar, bloody and bruised, his eyes closed and mouth open. Then Sonic notices his armor and sees that it is Pach. His exposed body is scorched and gory beyond recognition. Zaga gave him no mercy, Sonic thinks.

.

"Sonic, my dear comrade, our long battle has finally come to an end," Zaga says warmly, opening his arms.

Sonic walks closer. He was expecting to fight one last time, but it seems Zaga took care of it for them. "Is it really over?" He asks suddenly. He wonders at this fact that the Zexesh are already defeated, that even their trump card has been trumped. The entire campaign, which took Sonic from Zaga's initial anecdotes to the very core of this completely different world from the distant past, which had him travel to so many places and had him defeat so many enemies... it's now finally over. Yet, it didn't make sense to Sonic. Or rather, it didn't feel like it was over. It was like the feeling that he was still running even when he had finally stopped. Sonic thinks about Robotnik's ships, about what Tails said about him still being alive. But that seems like an extra detail at this point. Robotnik was gone, Mechanix was gone, and now the Zexesh are going.

"You're a fool, you damned deicide!" One of the Zexesh shouts. He is one Sonic did not see before, with pale yellow skin and black eyes. "Zaga is not your ally!"

Sonic laughs. "You think you can get me on your side at this point? Can't you admit you're defeated?"

The Zexesh answers, "No, I submit that the War is over and that we have lost it. I know that the Old order cannot survive any longer and that our very people have decided to replace everything that was once sacred to them. I know that the reign of Zexagalaxius on Mobius has finally reached an end! I... we... have fought with all of our might, mind and will, and have lost! No, I know this very well; I do not accept it, I do not want it, I am averse to it completely. But I do not deny the truth."

"However!" he suddenly exclaims and rocks onto his feet bound close together by what seems to be glowing cuffs. "Zaga is not your ally! He is an anarchist that will destroy your civilization's foundation just like ours. But not for the good of the people, for he wants them to be without protection so that he tests all life to survive absolute destruction! He wants everyone and everything "insignificant" to die. He said so himself, before you arrived!"

Sonic smirks. "You say you're rational and then start raving! Do you think I'll believe you, free you and attack him?" Then, recalling something, he steps closer to the Zexesh. "What's more, all of you had decided to eradicate everything outside of Nexus, including your own people! Is that not "absolute destruction"?! Why should I even listen to you?"

Zaga laughs once. "Indeed. More than anything, you are a politician, Kaldre, and what is a politician if he cannot use rhetoric and lies? You are hypocritical beyond that, suddenly putting my character on trial as if ethics meant anything to you who recognizes only power!"

The Zexesh so-named Kaldre turns around and argues, "As if ethics meant anything to you, either!" He turns to Sonic and changes his expression, seeing Sonic who looked at the exchange somewhat interestedly. Suddenly having an idea, he asks Sonic, "Before the Plague, what did you see in the simulation?"

Sonic thinks about it. "The Emerald War was going on."

Kaldre looks at Sonic and then turns to Zaga, who looks back at him curiously. "Of course. You really are manipulating him by hiding what happened in between those periods!"

"First of all, I don't understand why you thought trying to brainwash me into accepting your historical propaganda would work, when I had encountered the brutality of your regime first hand," Sonic says.

"It was not designed for someone like you! More than anything, it only served to delay you, although now it obviously doesn't matter," Kaldre explains. "That's not the point! Zaga had manipulated the simulation with the intent to keep you from questioning your motives. No, you would have come here with your own intention, anyway, but you must know the truth!" He suddenly stops and looks at Zaga, who continues to look at him in the same way, somewhat bemused.

"Go ahead and speak. He has fought a great deal in our world and has earned the complete truth that is known only between you Zexesh and me. He, too, is an author of history," Zaga says.

Sonic looks at Zaga strangely, and then to Kaldre who turns around and speaks. "The Emerald War was a total war, a free-for-all of seven nation-states using Black, Image and newer Chaos Emerald-fueled technology. Inevitably, resources were drained and many lives were lost. After many decades, the war finally ended when exhaustion and pain extinguished the inferno of ethnic hatred. Slowly, trade was reestablished and peace returned. That bloody war ended but the wounds still hurt and needed to heal. It took a long time, a very long time, but assuredly the Second Great Age arose from the Seven Lands and the Chaos Emeralds were used as the cornerstone of a new, constructive age. The Anazze finally took to accepting their leader and god, Zexagalaxius."

"Then someone, some damned fool who knew where and how Zaga was sealed, unsealed him..."

Zaga snickers. "It was Oio."

Kaldre smiles. "As I thought. I had never supported the Ancient Zexesh's decision to accept that anti-Zexesh. They overlooked the summoning of the Chaos simply because he stated later that it returned the Old Zexesh to power! Even if that intent was true, his methods were insane and unnecessary. Of course he'd bring you back as well, probably to state later how the Old Zexesh succeed over all!"

"Oh?" Zaga says. "But is that not the case? Your questioning of Zexa's Supremacy is rather unfit for being an Old Zexesh, yourself."

"Don't tell me what is fit as Zexesh! What's more, your philosophy is just the same as his!" Kaldre shouts back. He then turns to Sonic again. "After Zaga was unsealed, he then immediately unsealed Mechanix as well. As the world was alight in joy in the Second Great Age, it was Zega here who began mass murdering innocent people and razing cities to the ground! He stole the Chaos Emerald from each land and gave them to Mechanix, filling him with power he was never designed to keep!"

"He exclaimed how he was the creator of their god, that he was superior to Zexagalaxius and was yet completely mortal like them, a living god! He demanded that all of the citizens should reject every institution of the Supremacy and believe only in power, his power, as the ultimate reality! He would kill people and justify it as extermination of the weak! He would state that the only reality is willpower, that those who had the will to destroy everything, including their loved ones, deserved a place in the new, "best" world! He gathered an army of deluded zealots who were nothing more than thugs, killing the weak, injured, disabled, young and old! He wiped entire regions off the map and nearly literally set the entire world on fire. Just like Oio, he thought the world should be purified through a trial of global destruction!"

Sonic lowers a brow. "Why should I believe you? I never experienced that. And even if that was in the simulation, that thing is clearly designed to reflect only your 'truth'."

Kaldre takes a few breaths. He replies, "Zaga would have really killed off our entire species if it weren't for the Zexesh of Angelia of that time, Yurin. He developed a technology separate from anything developed before to create the Master Emerald. With that, he could nullify the power of the seven Chaos Emeralds and use its own power to personally stop Zaga. Zaga and Mechanix were immediately resealed and all information about them was to be known only by the Zexesh... although I would have destroyed them both, myself. After that, Yurin somehow exiled the Chaos Emeralds into the Special Zone and had his family protect the Master Emerald for all time."

Zaga adds, "That Knuckles you know, Sonic, he's a descendant of Yurin. He has one of the strongest punches I've met, although it's nowhere near the same as Yurin's."

Sonic looks at him. "So you admit what he's saying is true? Did you really do all that, Zaga...?"

"Yes, Sonic. Everything he said... was true!" Zaga says, without a change in proud expression. Sonic for his part stayed the same, too. Hearing his crimes did not make them real to Sonic.

Zaga explains, looking at the beauty of the Black Emerald. "I was sick of my people constantly becoming complacent and accepting the suffering inflicted upon them by their masters, and I'll admit Oio influenced me when he told me of how true growth only occurs when all of the old limits are broken. He believed that the optimum state was the verge of death against insurmountable odds, for there, it is those that survive the challenge who can survive anything and deserve the praise of the gods. I then formulated an ideal world of super-warriors who would constantly fight each other, who would always be vigilant at every moment, in body, mind and spirit, so that they are sharpened and honed into actual gods, and the timid earth would become their paradise."

"I was obsessed with that ideal, I could not be shaken from it. I was defeated, however, because I had confused power with willpower. That mistake is my single regret."

While Zaga was talking, Sonic was reminded of all the visions he had of Mechanix's victims. That happened during that time, Sonic thought.

"So, you see? He is not your ally!" Kaldre emphatically concludes. "He's insane! You must strike him down and let us return order, so that you may have peace!"

Sonic does not respond, wondering why this revelation doesn't bother him at all. It was so long ago, the deeds already done, but Zaga was indeed no hero. And yet, the reign of the Zexesh was just as terrible. But in a way, Sonic had stopped caring about even what the Zexesh did. The battle was already won, anyway.

"What happened in the past doesn't concern me," Sonic says. "Zaga has helped my fight and I have helped his." He looks at Zaga. "If you try to destroy the world again, I'll fight and destroy you." Zaga laughs. Sonic smirks and looks back at Kaldre. "It's as simple as that."

"I can't believe this idiocy is what destroyed our Supremacy," another Zexesh suddenly speaks. He is the other bound one, with indigo skin and white eyes, although one is puffed up. He faces away from everyone. "Nihilism and mere survival. The base prevail!"

Sonic, thinking, speaks again to Zaga. "There is more to the world than power, but indeed power is the most powerful. For whatever the ideal, even peace and justice, violence is the most direct means of change and power is what controls violence. I... I accept that. I suppose all of you have already accepted that."

Zaga answers, "Yes. Only those without the willpower to use violence do not use violence and so claim that all others should likewise not use violence. _They_ are the idealists, thinking that the ultimate goal is to avoid suffering, which is inevitable! They worship freedom from pain, when it is pain that will set them free! Alas, O Sonic, you are their avatar, you believe this world of theirs should be protected, its bubble of false reality kept intact, even though you, yourself, understand that is too simple! Like a father over his nest! I was once like you, but I found that I was redundant. The guardian's mission is never over. He is a part of the grand cycle and makes it revolve just as all of the others do. I won't convince you of it; you will realize with the power you have that more can be done."

He tosses the Black Emerald up in the air and catches it, before tossing it up again, playing with it. Sonic feels adrenaline surge through his body just by watching it spin in the air.

.

Sonic quickly asks, "Now that it's all over, what are you going to do?"

Zaga smiles. He stands up and Kaldre's eyes open wide. "Below us, there is a revolution of the people. With little more than a global war, a consciousness of the significance of history and their oppressors temporarily stunned, they have arose from their slumber and apathy and are taking the world back into their hands after several thousand years. I never had a need to kill so many people, it seems! Hahahaha! I regret doing so, but I admit it a regret I bear lightly. All the people ever needed was an opportunity and an example. If that! Perhaps even in peacetime the metamorphosis of the soul is possible..."

He turns around and walks up the stairs. "My philosophy was incomplete. I had thought the reason of all existence is to continue existing and that the most effective means to do so was for the most powerful challenge that brings out the most powerful growth. Yes, a challenge is still necessary, but not at that level, no, not at all. That is not the problem. No, it is that I assumed that the universe is almighty, infinite and eternal!"

He turns around at the top and jabs his staff into the ground. "No! The reason I valued the universe as such, that I valued the transformation of all animates and inanimates as 'good', that I valued anything at all with any value at all was because the universe existed in the first place! It is of itself and so continues the damned cycle of perpetual mundane redundancy, of stagnation and destruction! Without everything, anything is nothing, in all, and every way!"

"The ultimate telos, the final object, that is my goal! Not Truth, but the answer to Truth! The solution to the question of all reality!" Zaga suddenly looks down at Kaldre with cold, piercing eyes. "It is not enough to be a benevolent, just or even disciplined ruler of your people's physical, mental and spiritual worlds, like you fools have attempted to achieve. You have tried to create a structure that protects itself, an immortal being made by living things! Fools. You have tried to eternalize your concept of what but one single, lucky man was, that weakling Zexa! Throughout all of your government, religion, language and history, you built such elaborate worlds of possibilities centered on your ideas, and watch your workers work and play their lives for you! And what! Is it not all _destroyed_! You are but men, and you have failed."

Zaga's expression is wild with emotion, suddenly carried away in this gale of thought.

"No, you are not gods, and Zexa is not a god, and there are no gods. Instead, the most ultimate thing must be beyond the universe, beyond everything... and what is beyond everything other than nothing?! Nothing, a tiny vortex that sucks up all time and space, simply by being superior in ways beyond reality and physics! NOTHING!"

"When all is nothing, there can be no more transformations. That itself is the final transformation, the most powerful one, the one that only exists once! Between all of everything and nothing, that can only occur from something more powerful than the universe itself! Regardless of its origin, even if it is from the universe, the willpower necessary to enact the final transformation is the absolute ultimate form of all forms! That willpower, the truest form of the Ultramen, who grow to be more powerful than the Universe itself... That is the goal now! That is my objective!"

He looks at Sonic. "I see your expression, Sonic, and I tell you it is not suicidal, for the willpower that can create that very transformation from everything to nothing is more eternal than the true Eternity, resounding throughout all everything before and all nothing after, the true god of gods, the final and most true realization of the ultimate being, the Ultraman! It is simultaneously destruction, creation and eternal existence!" He suddenly turns around, and Sonic finally understands what he must do.

.

He sprints forward, but it's too late. Zaga simply places the Black Emerald into an indentation in the pedestal.

"Zaaagaaa!" Sonic screams. Zaga turns his head and smiles as light suddenly fills the room from the glowing walls. Sonic spin attacks but is reflected off a spherical energy barrier around Zaga. The barrier also launches two of the Zexesh at the walls.

The many sounds of the giant Zenith which had hitherto been quiet yet omnipresent, suddenly gained volume and at first made quite a distracting din. Sonic looks to the walls, seeing patches of the energy disappear, revealing the crystal sphere around them. The millions of tiny planes reorganized themselves, forming larger, recognizable shapes before disassembling back into noise, only to reappear as something else. As they moved, holes in the crystal revealed the larger planes, solids and tubes even farther out which were moving as well, and even farther than that the machine. Not only were all of the different layers of the Zenith changing shape and positions, Sonic could see them rotate around the central room. He looks back at Zaga and tries spindashing into the barrier again to no avail.

"Did you come all of this way just to use the Origin, Zaga?!" Sonic yells. Unable to think of how to beat the barrier, he prepares for an endless rapid attack. "Do you even care about all of the people you're going to kill?! Do you only care about your insane fucking philosophy?! There must be other ways, Zagaa!"

Zaga smiles. "I could explain, Sonic, but soon you will become powerful enough to see how this is all right, how this is necessary! Suffering and life are inconsequential!"

Sonic suddenly sees in his peripheral vision the blue of the sky. He turns, only to see a section of the machine layer pass over it. But again at another angle he sees the sky, which is no longer night but becoming morning already. More and more sections of the sky become visible and Sonic suddenly notices that not only is the entire Zenith reshaping itself, the Infinity Tower itself is rotating around a point. And in that very instant, imagining what it looks like from outside, Sonic's eyes and mind are blasted open.

.

"Ah, so you are finally aware of it now," Zaga observes. "Yes, the true design of the Infinity Tower and Zenith is that, of a gigantic starpost!"

"That is to say, all of the starposts you've indubitably seen are miniatures of this tower. They were placed all over Mobius as a sign of the global rule of Nexus! Moreover, they are all Origin machines in a way because all of them open a portal to the Special Zone. Occasionally, fluctuations between this world squeeze energy out both here and there in the familiar form of Power Rings. That was the main purpose of their design, so as to create an abundance of resources for the people. Although noble, it was still never enough."

"With enough rings in this world, you could open up a portal in any starpost large enough for a short trip to the Special Zone. Some gigantic Power Rings can do the same. And in the Special Zone, with enough rings you break the energy bubble that surrounds and protects the Chaos Emeralds. Breaking that bubble in this world is of course how you transform into Super Sonic!"

Sonic looks at Zaga intently. "How do you know all of this? Why are you telling me?"

"Why, Sonic, it is more than coincidence that the strongest men of history have at some point ventured directly into the Special Zone! Oio himself believed that global transformation would be inevitable if the world was inundated with Chaos Energy directly removed from the Special Zone using the Origin! The Zexesh kept it merely as a weapon, although a few fools thought it could be used to carry Mobius into the afterlife, the divine providence of Zexagalaxius or some such nonsense. Isn't that right, Hahra?" He looks at the indigo Zexesh and flicks his finger at him, causing an explosion that sends him flying through the air until he hits a column and then falls back onto the ground.

"Zaga, you bastard!" Kaldre shouts. Sonic looks at him intently.

"Am I a bastard when my movements create such beauty as this moment?" Zaga asks and points to the side. At that moment, the Zenith returns to its initial position but now in complete symmetry with straight holes leading from the center to the sky outside. The sun was now rising above the horizon. As it did, spinning, glowing balls of light far out in the sky, seemingly above the sun, move faster and faster in a ring until they blur together.

Suddenly, the space between the light is squeezed and pulled away, but it is not above or below the ring. The air, although transparent, seems to bend the light until there is no light at all except for the ring. A massive hole of darkness thus appears far up in the sky, much, much larger than the Zenith or even Nexus. From its center, a very shallow dome of pure white emerges. Slowly the ring rises, revealing more and more of the surface continuing from the dome. Everyone is silent, observing how the surface expands ever farther to the sides, as if a new planet is being created on the spot. Underneath its sheer white surface there are shapes of other colors mingling with each other in a way much like the initial Chaos. The sphere is beyond immense, and the clouds scatter gently away around the sphere. It is so large and so bright that the sun which had finally appeared vanished again beneath it, as if it is absorbed entirely.

When this happens, Sonic notices what looks like a tree lazily spinning upwards. Not understanding what he saw, he walks to the edge of the basin and looks downwards. He gasps.

Hundreds of thousands of things, of trees, people, cars, tanks, aircraft and even some buildings were simply floating above the ground. Many of the people were moving their limbs around frantically or clutching onto other objects or people without moving at all. It was like gravity had suddenly disappeared. The blue light of day was changed as well, and seemed to shimmer with all sorts of different colors. None of it seemed real.

"Only the transformed will even know that they have failed. They will watch as their entire world, one of trillions, is taken forever away. They will learn in that short moment to appreciate the humility they feel to the ones who came from their ranks and numbers but exceeded beyond anything they can understand. Everyone else will just die," Zaga says, looking outside. He lets down his energy barrier and Sonic, seeing that, immediately sprints towards him.

Just before he reaches him, Zaga turns his head and a bubble of energy rapidly expands from his body. He is knocked backwards.

"You are one of them in your current state, and I can... kill you easily."

He walks forward and takes his staff out of the floor. He then places his right foot backwards and crouches slightly, holding out his hands. Energy bursts from within his chest and coils around his limbs, head and staff. His locks lift into the air and his body seems to glow from within. "I suggest you transform," he states and then suddenly swings his staff around his fingers at such a fast rate that it seems like a solid disc. He then slams it into the air and waves of energy explode outwards. Everything in its way is torn apart and disintegrated as it very quickly approaches Sonic.

.

In that moment, Sonic transforms into Super Sonic, just before the waves come upon him. Yet even then he is sent hurtling backwards in a great amount of burning pain. The explosion engulfs the seven Zexesh and without so much as a gasp they all are reduced to a dispersing cloud of ions. The sphere is destroyed layer by layer from within, and in only a few seconds the entire Zenith is completely annihilated. Sonic shakes his head, seeing that he was pushed so far that he could see the entire Infinity Tower below him. He realizes the power of the attack nearly knocked him out, only to realize that Knuckles and Tails were...

"Did you hear me?" Zaga asks, floating right in front of him. Sonic is shocked and backs away, only for Zaga to suddenly appear even closer. "I said, 'Even your Hyper mode is too slow for me'." Before Sonic can finish hearing what he said, he feels air rushing past his body and his legs being swung around, and when his eyes stop spinning he sees Zaga already a speck in the distance, right before his back slams through several floors of the Infinity Tower. He already feels weak when he lands on top of a pile of rubble but he swiftly pushes himself off the ground.

Sonic thinks as he brushes the dirt off his golden body. He notices with concern that he is somehow cut and bruising. "So powerful... He's completely changed... he was never philosophical like that and never as strong as this... never attacked me with such-"

"Antipathy?" Zaga asks, suddenly standing before him again. Sonic lets out a yelp that is choked into a gurgled grunt as Zaga slams him into the wall by his neck. Zaga moves his face very close to Sonic's and glares into his eyes with burning disdain. He then throws him to the side. "We are no longer allies. I have decided to do all of this long before we completed our objective, and now my past self is no longer necessary. If I remained the same after victory, my lifelong mission would have been completed, but I would lose my reason to fight."

Before Sonic can get up again, he feels his back slam yet again into a wall and then another. His belly burns and screams with pain. He rolls onto his knees and looks up at Zaga, only to suddenly feel some warm liquid in his mouth. He spits it out. Blood.

Zaga slowly strides towards him. "You are the only one who can stop me, but not in this weak form, anymore. Pathetically weak. I appreciate you more than anyone else in this godforsaken world, and as my final act of goodwill, I'll allow you to reach my level." He tosses the Black Emerald in his hand, and Sonic realizes he wasn't holding onto it even a millisecond ago. Zaga then tosses it relatively gently at Sonic, who still barely sees it coming before grabbing it.

"Stop thinking about the reasons and the methods anymore, Sonic. I am beyond such simple things and so must you be. Set a goal and reach it. It's not even the goal that is important. All, all that is important... is the fight. The struggle of one power over another, that is all reality is, that is all! You know that, Sonic, you know that very well! That is what you must do. It is all you can ever do."

Zaga walks over to a window and looks out at the New Chaos floating above Mobius. "I can hardly see it from here." He takes a few steps backwards and then swings his staff. As he does, the wall blasts apart in a giant explosion, leaving a massive hole with the sky now clearly visible aside from the temporary smoke and flying debris. "Better."

He points New Chaos to Sonic. "If you think your will is more powerful than mine, than attack me in the very center of the New Chaos and do not hold back. I will not try and convince you that your cyclic world of noble suffering is wrong. I will only try to kill you. And you, the same to me. That is how it should be." He walks to the edge of the hole and then past it, seemingly walking on air. Sonic shouts, "Zaga! This isn't like you! In every way!"

He turns. "Isn't like me? Why Sonic, have you not heard people say those same words to you?" And he is right. Sonic, recalling Tails, recalling-

"We are constantly changing, constantly growing and becoming stronger. Our personalities, our minds, what are those to us anymore than our bodies and abilities? If they change to most effectively achieve the goal of our willpower, then why try to reverse that, to return to weakness? You will soon understand this, Sonic, as soon as you transform from a Super man into an Ultra man! I don't need to tell you this... Enough! It is simple, Sonic, come at me or die!"

And after saying that, Zaga disappears. Sonic then notices a splash in the surface of the gigantic New Chaos, only two seconds later.

.

"I was thinking this would all be over..." Sonic thinks. He gives a small chuckle.

He looks at the Black Emerald. He hasn't held it in a long time. The Emerald that gave Mechanix all that power. The Emerald whose power he used to kill Robotnik. The Emerald used to summon Chaos and now New Chaos. The Emerald that was the center of the First Great Age. And all it was, was a compressed form of so many Black Stones that came from space...

"Now it's my time to use it," Sonic says. Like from the other Emeralds he tries to draw its energy into himself. At once he feels an adrenaline rush that resembles Hyper mode but quickly becomes even more intense than that. It mixes with the exhilarating power of Super form and Sonic suddenly loses track of his mind and body. He becomes absolutely immersed in... euphoria, and his vision fades away into very vivid but incomprehensible dream-like images. They pass by in extremely rapid flashes, and for only a moment he can make out a face or place, just for it to transform into something else entirely.

Just as rapidly as it went away, his vision returned. He became tolerant to the euphoria, to the feeling that his body and mind were aflame with bliss and energy. Focusing on the energy within him, he finds that he can't place its limits. The more he tries to ascertain how strong this transformation has made him, the more he realizes it is impossible to do so. He feels connected with an incredibly vast power, like he is a gatekeeper of infinite dimensions within him.

Sonic's appearance has changed. His quills do not flare down or up but instead in any and every direction. What's more, they seem to slowly move of their own accord around particular directions, as if adrift in the flow of his energy. Black and white layers of color seem to flow outwards from within his body, his skin glowing in gradient pulses. His irises are a reflective chrome.

"So-" Sonic starts, only to notice how his own voice has changed. It seems remarkably crisp and clear, yet at the same time, unintelligible and strangely drony. "Let's see if this is really worth it," Sonic finishes. He turns to the wall opposite of the hole Zaga blew open and starts charging his spin dash. As he does so, the ground underneath him is torn to shreds and he cuts right through it like butter. Not realizing this, he bursts out of the charge in mid-air and plows clear through the wall. Untucking, he looks back and watches as a massive section of the Infinity Tower's wall, consisting of about 10 stories, breaks apart piece by piece and hurtles through the air and then falls like rain towards the city far below.

"This is good," Sonic remarks. "I can end this quickly." He dashes straight through the Infinity Tower again and flies directly towards the New Chaos. As it gets closer, its immense size seems to expand infinitely to the horizon. He sees the moving shapes within with much more clarity than before. He notices small flares of energy exploding from its surface, following invisible lines and then getting sucked back in. Without any hesitation, he plunges headfirst through the energy.

.

[**Destiny of Death** Act 1] (8/41)

_In this new form, Ultra Sonic, all of Sonic's abilities are now maximized and without doing anything he _regenerates power rings_. He can lose power rings only by extreme attacks, and suffer recoil only from the strongest extreme attacks. They scatter and disintegrate very quickly, however, which is a dangerous drawback at low ring levels. However, from 50 to 1 ring(s), Ultra Sonic's Hyper power (which slows time down) rapidly strengthens until he runs out of rings. When he does, he detransforms to Super Sonic before detransforming again, which is a last second boon if Sonic is near rings at the time. _

_Ultra Sonic's top speed is twice as fast as Super Sonic's (4x normal) and his acceleration is twice as fast as well, which is pretty jarring at first. He can land on any surface at any angle without even needing to keep moving. His jump is twice as high as Super Sonic's (4x normal). _

_He can also change in and out of a spin ball at any point in time (a useful fighting cancel), and also charge and launch a spin dash in mid-air now. A fully charged Ultra spin dash will create a sonic boom that instantly destroys all weak enemies on screen (delivering 3 hits of damage to each) and sends him even faster than his top speed for a short period of time. However, he very rapidly slows down after, so it is wise to untuck quickly. _

_Ultra Sonic also starts rapidly increasing his Hyper power (slowing down time) from 50 to 1 ring(s). Finally, his close combat fighting is also twice as fast and strong. To help control this extreme range of power which would otherwise be uselessly excessive, this form also has a precise and intuitive connection of button pressure to power, in a way similar to platformer short jumping._

The inside of New Chaos is indeed filled with chaos. The background is similar to that of the Special Zone except even less comprehensible. Colors change before one can even be aware of what they are, shapes hurtle across and crash into each other, waves of bright energy wash over and a tide of visual static rapidly emerges over everything and then disappears.

The foreground is likewise constantly changing. There are large strings of pure Chaos energy, which takes away even Ultra Sonic's rings. These strings bend and move but remain continuous, very rarely breaking or fusing with other strings. Effectively, they are the boundaries that Sonic must stay within. At first, he must only fly in the space between them which can be narrow, large, straight, curved or irregular at any given moment. He may find himself suddenly turning in a new direction almost instantly.

However, soon he comes across more obstacles in his way. They are familiar:

- Spinning labyrinths of crystal blocks which are broken to pieces. Sonic can choose to fly through them, run and jump on all of the surfaces, or simply spindash and break through them.

- Long, curving halfpipes that are also split apart and spinning around their central axis. They are filled with the floating mines which don't even slow Sonic down now.

- Small and large checkered miniplanets, some of which are intact but most broken into pieces. The blue and red spheres once flourishing in this environment are now both grey and corase, and simply break into dust-like energy when Sonic so much as touches them. However, the orange spheres still spring Sonic forward and the white spheres with red stars still bounce Sonic off of them.

.

After a short duration moving through the serpentine corridors occasionally filled with shattered relics of the older Special Zone, the Chaos energy strings all at once move as if commanded like prehensile whips. Sonic has no choice but to dive into the strings as they swiftly crack around him, forming straighter lines that lead to the core of the massive ball of energy. For a moment, Sonic sees the strings tying a knot around the center and spinning around it like fan blades. This view is obscured as the strings, now in command from the center, presumably Zaga, whip themselves toward Sonic to destroy him.

Sonic cannot do much but fly away from the pursuing strings. Instead of just striking them, they position themselves around Sonic and follow his movements, making them much deadlier than before. In addition, the solid structures of the Special Zone are also organized into long arms stretching from the center, consisting of the tubes connected by the spheres as joints. These will also be flung towards Sonic to whack him hard (and it will hurt him). However, the strings will not overlap these arms, and so if Sonic suddenly turns around as an arm swings at him and carefully lands himself upon it, he will find a limited form of sanctuary.

That is, the strings won't attack him. On the spheres, columns, rows and rings of every height, consisting of crystal blocks or now-Chaos energy-charged spike bombs, come straight towards Sonic. There are also carefully placed spring and bouncer spheres to catapult Sonic haplessly towards the danger. The tubes aren't much different and the waves of obstacles and hazards come at a much faster pace and in more elongated patterns. After navigating through over three sphere's worth of the arm, a string whips by and cuts straight through it far ahead, detaching it and removing all of the connected pieces from Zaga's control. They then hurtle randomly at Sonic who must also again avoid the strings.

.

Once Sonic makes it halfway through New Chaos, Zaga unleashes more of his exorbitantly powerful Black energy explosions which radially expand with great speed and force from the center. It comes in a large, continuous wave and within it Sonic suffers a great deal of damage in a very short amount of time. In order to survive, he must actually fly into the strings and move forwards through them as the damage is relatively a lot less. Of course, once it is safe outside Sonic should again avoid the Chaos energy strings.

Zaga then shoots out thousands of tiny strings of energy towards all of the floating debris and yanks them towards him. New structures are then flung out at an even faster pace than before. These consist of building-like structures that range from small to large, with many but not all of the surfaces glowing with hazardous Chaos energy. Some of the rooms have no exits, but Sonic can spin dash through any wall that's in his way (although this takes time and can push him farther back).

In addition, Zaga has crafted many autonomous creatures consisting of basic shapes like cones, spheres and cubes that are rather minimalist. There are many types, all of which attack Sonic:

- Tiny pieces of shrapnel that come in great flocks or discreetly, one at a time, dogging Sonic down and draining his energy (faster with more on him).

- Small blocks that fire simple energy patterns at him, such as 1 to 3 direct shots.

- Larger small blocks that fire from 5 to 15 shots, in either a single concentrated burst, an all-at-once spread shot burst, or in small spurts.

- Medium beings consisting of several shapes that can fire single more powerful shots, rapid fire, or shots which spin around each other and somewhat home in on Sonic, or that can move towards Sonic and attack him with energy blades.

- Medium-large beings that are much more complex, can spawn tiny and small beings, fire much more shots in longer streams as well as homing missiles and powerful energy beams.

- Large shapes which continuously fire at Sonic with multiple shots, beams or missiles, as well as being able to spawn up to medium-size beings.

- Very large, goliath-like constructs that are each unique in design. They fire complex bullet-hell patterns and attack directly with tentacles, swords or even by grabbing structures or shape-beings and swinging or throwing them at Sonic. There are only a few of these.

After a long fight, Sonic finally reaches the knot of strings which unties itself before him. Once disconnected, the strings drift apart, disconnecting and then reconnecting in large loops far away. The background is completely consumed by the static and the internal space is filled with broken debris. Sonic finally reaches the center, where Zaga floats with arms crossed.

.

"Indeed, you have transformed beyond your transformation. Not just physically, but essentially. You and I have both left both the mortal and the immortal worlds behind, for whatever reason that propelled us, we are here, now, facing each other," he says.

"I'm going to return to that mortal world. I'm only here to stop you, Zaga. I have come this far not to escape the worlds I have traversed and the foes I defeated, but to stand up for them and protect all of them!"

"And in doing so, you permit the cycle of rebirth to continue. Have you not thought of it? Why Mobius reaches its zenith, approaches total destruction, and then power is centralized, over and over! The reign of the first Zexesh, the shower of Black Stones, the Black Emerald! The First Great Age, Chaos, the Chaos Emeralds! The Second Great Age, my ideal of a Super world, the Master Emerald! Zexa, Oio, yes, yes, even I am a part of the cycle! And then you! Don't you see?! And beyond that, entire planets, galaxies, universes are born, unborn and reborn! If suffering is all that concerns you, can't you see that suffering will be endless if the cycle does not end?! The greatest power, all of the power... it exists as Everything, it is centralized in Everything, it allows Everything to continue forever... it is the ultimate enemy, the ultimate opponent! It must be destroyed... Everything must be destroyed and nothing, pure nothing shall remain. I am a part of the cycle, too, I know that. I am part of Everything, I know that, too! So, I, you, Everything, Everything...!"

Sonic laughs. "I thought I was deluded... but you, do you really think your willpower is greater than reality itself? How is even this not just an idea only you think is right! I don't know if we can go back to who we were, and what we were like. Maybe this is as far as we go, or maybe we'll go even farther. But you are the last enemy and I accept your challenge. There is no choice but to fight, our goals are directly opposite each other. I guess you knew that already, huh? We've both climbed a long, long ladder of difficulty, pain, and death, and we have become so strong that reality itself seem distant and weak underneath us. There's nobody left who's stronger than us... but us."

Zaga smiles and regains his composure. "Yes, Sonic, now you understand. Even if our ideals were the same, we are both occupying the same place as the one Ultraman, as the being greater than being itself."

He slowly takes a fighting position. "All that is left is will!"

.

[Act 1 Boss: ZAGA]

The strings now retract and snap together, spinning around on every axis at very high speeds, almost appearing to be a continuous sphere. This boundary is effectively absolute; neither Sonic nor Zaga can escape the spherical battlefield, and upon hitting it will be deflected back with some damage.

Zaga moves around just as fast as Sonic and can change direction just as fast, too. In this way he is almost impossible to track unless he is stationary, as even his attacks are slower than he is. His moving pattern is spontaneous, and although he may revolve around the center or cut a straight line through, he may move in any way imaginable.

He of course still has his attacks from the first fight, so long ago, however upgraded:

- With just a finger, he can shoot a thin laser at Sonic. Flicking out his other three fingers, he can shoot three more lasers.

- Punching the air, he launches a large projectile at Sonic.

- Firing circular, spiral, square, triangular, undulating or many more types of waves of energy. projectiles (to an innumerable amount) from his chest. He can do this while moving.

- Flinging a large amount of pulsing projectile towards Sonic that each explode.

- Firing a beam which moves either as a straight line on a pivot, a prehensile string, or as a stationary body with a constantly extending and turning head [_like the game Snake_].

- He also uses his staff for another category of attacks:

- The familiar Black energy explosion. At this range, there are actually small holes in the waves of radiating energy which Sonic can navigate through if he is fast enough.

- Throwing the spinning staff at Sonic like a boomerang.

- Dipping it into the Chaos energy string boundary and either

- Reshaping it into a shape besides a sphere (including concave shapes)

- Pulling out a ball of the stuff and throwing it at Sonic (it then bounces around the battlefield several times before being reabsorbed)

- Swinging it through the air, launching forth crescent waves of Black energy.

Zaga is also fond of direct combat and zips up to Sonic to fight him physically.

- He uses many feints

- and attacks using his fists,

- elbows,

- knees,

- feet

- and even his head on occasion.

He often attempts to counter Sonic when he attacks. He is fast, and when he lands a hit, will continue a devastating nonstop combination attack that he either ends by throwing Sonic into the boundary (and perhaps dashing towards him and continuing to attack him there) or by detonating a small Black energy explosion directly on him, which can be very deadly at early ring levels. He often sneaks in more powerful attacks that slow his movements by the tiniest sliver, but upon being countered have a stronger blow back than usual.

Zaga cannot be hit at first, in the typical sense. Like Sonic, he regains energy if he is not being attacked. Sonic must drain this energy by constantly attacking him and driving him into the Chaos energy boundary whenever possible to pummel him down. When his energy is low enough, his recoils indicate that he is being truly hit and hurt. He can take at most 8 true hits before forming a barrier around him, backing off, and then shattering the barrier as an attack with his energy recovered. He becomes defensive like this whenever Sonic attacks him the same way so soon.

.

After 40 true hits, Zaga throws out his staff which, while spinning itself, revolves extremely rapidly in a sphere around him, keeping Sonic away. Inside, he gathers an incredibly large amount of energy and his entire body becomes enveloped in pure Black energy, with only his eyes a different color, namely a flashing rainbow color. He then suddenly makes another Black energy explosion, this time even faster and longer than the one before, which shatters not only his staff but the Chaos energy string boundary around them. The light bends in waves outwards from his body.

With no boundary, they are no longer contained in such a small space. But it hardly matters, as now Zaga moves much, much faster than Sonic, such that his after images have after images and there seems to be several continuous snake-like light shadows of Zaga flying around. Only his tracer-like eyes give any indication of where he _could_ be of multiple places.

Zaga combines many of his projectile moves with direct combat to overwhelm Sonic's senses. A majority of his attacks are now infused with Black energy and so deal more damage, which can very quickly accumulate. At this point, Ultra Sonic should have more than 200 rings as two continuous mistakes can obliterate those rings in seconds. Although it may seem impossible to attack him, Zaga's movement patterns are now more predictable despite his speed, and all it takes is a single strike to slow Zaga down. Of course, Sonic must chain many more strikes than before to drill out his energy, and avoid attacks that Zaga will launch back as he is being hit. With sharp precision, Sonic can break off Zaga's Black energy barrier for just a moment to land a single true hit. But after that, Zaga detonates another Black energy explosion.

After 6 more hits, Zaga's attacks become much less compact and instead increase in size and ferocity. His bullet-hell patterns become very complicated, his beam becomes humongous, etc. Likewise, in direct combat his attacks are much wider and so are somewhat easier to counter. Sonic shouldn't take Zaga's desperation lightly, as not only do his attacks do more damage than ever before, he will occasionally feint or counter Sonic's counter and play other subtle mind games. If Zaga starts a combination on Sonic now, unless he has a lot of energy and struggles his hardest to escape, Sonic is very likely to be slaughtered.

3 more hits after that, Zaga backs away and detonates multiple massive Black energy explosions which interfere with each other. He flies through the explosion holes himself, trying to attack Sonic just enough to trap him in the crashing wave of pure power. All it takes is a single counter at one of these deadly moments to land the final hit, but alternatively, Sonic can just wait just a little bit longer for Zaga to run out of energy himself.

.

Zaga stops moving and glowing with Black energy. The visible energy that remains is flickering and getting dimmer. Sonic stops and watches.

"Damn it... just like Mechanix... without the Black energy, all I have is the weak Chaos and my weaker flesh..." Zaga mumbles. He looks up at Sonic with his limbs pulled loosely over his body.

"Haha... That was fun. I've never imagined I could have a battle... like that..."

"You lost. Do you still believe in what you wanted to do, even now? I won't hesitate-"

"No, no, Sonic... I never believed in that. You- haha, you really thought I did? Well... to be honest, I did believe... I got carried away with it... organizing my entire mind and body, orienting it for that one single goal... it was all a construct I made so I could put my everything into the fight. It was... cathartic. Religious... no, beyond even that. I needed a reason to fight you... I knew from the very beginning that the best fight I'd ever have would be with you!"

Sonic looks at Zaga. "But then, why did you summon New Chaos? Why did you want to..."

"It was so you wouldn't have a choice. I'm not going to apologize for it. I'm not going to apologize for anything... for any of the choices I made. It was all for the fight... from the very beginning of my life, I wanted to fight. For my people. For an ideal. For myself. I learned over time that it didn't matter why... I just want to fight. And I realized that if I kept on fighting, enemies would come to me, and I could get stronger, and fight stronger enemies, have better fights... Haha, I see your expression, Sonic, you don't believe me? I lied this entire time, about everything! No, I didn't lie, I seriously believed it... but my true self... was never interested in anything else... not even the expression of my willpower... I don't care who I am, or how people see me... all I care about... all I care about, Sonic, is the fight! More than anything, I am a WARRIOR!"

And after shouting that, he is reduced to a fit of coughs and groans. Sonic, who was moving closer, notices all of the wounds he inflicted on him. He was covering up even more, and seeing Sonic look at them, smiles. It is an ironic smile, as if he is aware of something Sonic isn't, and seeing that despite his victory, Sonic finds himself greatly disturbed. Before he even ventures to ask, Zaga continues.

"You're like me in every way, Sonic. You can only fight. You don't know of anything else! And like me, you don't regret anything you've done, anything you've said! But if I have lost here, you must not! I deny your any failure! You must grow ever stronger, Sonic the hedgehog! Seek the meaning of the hero!"

After saying that, his body once again glows, but this time a blazing hot white. It grows from within and consumes him at once. It is blinding, and Sonic looks around with wide-open eyes seeing how the background's static has not only disappeared, all of the colors have stopped moving as if frozen in time. He stares back at where Zaga, his body transforming into Black energy-infused flames. Sonic shouts his name, implores him not to do it. But his voice is silent under the great boom of Zaga's final words, which seem to burst forth from the small white sun that Zaga became with the velocity of a cyclone.

"**SON**IIiic! SUurPASSs the **GODS**!"

Zaga explodes, all of the Chaos energy in New Chaos explodes. Sonic rocketed down, out, and below the tremendous force of power, and at that very moment, he realizes he did what Zaga wanted. He detonated New Chaos. Visions of the white scorched landscape from the first Chaos flashed through his mind, and knowing how much bigger this one is, Sonic knew there was no chance even the ground would remain this time. He had no time to think, yet had no idea what to do. In only a few seconds, he had to stop this explosion which was beyond anything Zaga or Mechanix ever threw at him, which was beyond anything he ever had to do in his entire life, and beyond the power of every Mobian who ever lived...

Sonic pushes himself towards the explosion and pushes against it with all of his weight and all of his power, despite being exhausted from the fight, the war, his entire life. He still feels himself being launched back at incredible speeds but he has no time to think about it. He can't tell if he is pushing it anywhere at all but he doesn't think and pushes back.

He is pulling out all of the energy he can from the Chaos and Master Emeralds, but from the Black Emerald he feels a separate connection to a different place, one he has not tugged at. And so, without thinking of where it is, he forces it open, and he is awash with new energy, to what first seems like infinite amounts. He feels like a tiny vial containing an entire ocean and at once pushes all of that energy out of him against the explosion. And then he feels himself stopped, the energies balanced for a short moment. He takes the liberty to turn his head the other way and finds that he is falling close to the Zenith which seemed threateningly weird even for the speed from the power of the explosion. He then sees hundreds of thousands of people now floating in the air, unmoving, staring up at him in complete, abject terror. Nearly all of Nexus, even the structures underground, even the Infinity Tower, they are all removed from the ground, floating still in strange, slow rotations, with no translational movement. He sees everything covered in the glowing white light from the explosion, and turning his head around finds almost everything as far as he can see rising in the air. He looks at the sun, which he hasn't seen in so long, and even now can only see its lower edge underneath the great rim of the explosion.

Everything is frozen in time. Hyper mode... in Ultra form. The Black energy. He is stopping it. He has to finish stopping it. He doesn't think of anything else, and turning his head back towards the blank white sphere, pushes harder into it. He keeps on pushing, propelling himself with all of this energy. The explosion gives way, somehow. It seems to become... smaller.

Sonic looks again to his side and is surprised to no longer see the Mobian sky. Instead, he sees darkness with white lightning striking across its endless expanse. He sees the Alastran ruins somewhere in the distance. The Void?

Looking back at the explosion's energy, he sees it turning black as well. It darkens straight to the core and just simply becomes part of the Void, with no sound, no flash, nothing. He then notices that the Chaos and Master Emeralds are no longer supplying him any power. The portals through them to the Special Zone... are simply shut. Chaos to Special... Black to Void... The Void is consuming Special... the Black is consuming Chaos...?

.

Before Sonic could think about it anymore, he suddenly feels crippling, antagonizing pain. Without the constant flow of Black energy, he is suddenly reaware of his own body and the many wounds he had gained. His body seems to demand that he open the portal even wider, to let his body be coated with even more energy... but Sonic refuses. He shuts it completely and removes himself from Ultra form.

In that moment, he is snapped back to the sky above Mobius in his normal form. He lets the pain flood over him, consume his entire awareness, in the sub-freezing air. His screams cause him to choke even as he plummets up to terminal velocity. He doesn't notice everything and everyone around him falling at the same speed, back to the ground. He doesn't hear the thousands of other screams filling the air, the thousands of crashes and shatters.

Sonic is only in pain, incredible, unendurable pain. It is too much to struggle against. His only conscious desire is to die, so it can all end. He doesn't want to fight anymore. It hurts too much. He needs to die... He...

.

.

...Sonic feels asphalt under him. He hears something. It doesn't make sense. Like something spinning. He opens his eyes, sees something. White? Grey. Shiny. It's looking back at him. It whirrs, cocks its head. It looks exactly like him. Is he upside down, looking through water at himself? No, it stands up. Its body is mechanical. Sonic blinks, groans, rolls to the side. It can't be. He forgets about it and puts all his weight into his knee. It hurts a lot, using his muscles. He raises his other foot and stamps it down. Pushes, and the weight, so heavy, he can't. He breathes. He's really weak. He pushes again, grunts, raises his other foot, slowly, slowly stands up. His head bowed, he sees his bare feet. "What...? How could my power shoes..."

He rubs his head, which is very sore. He feels the flesh of his hand and looking at it, sees his gloves almost completely gone, too. All that's left are his cuffs, although they're burnt and torn almost to the point of falling off. He then looks at the other thing. It looks back at him.

"Silver Sonic... no way..." Sonic manages to say.

It nods and patiently waits, staring at Sonic. Sonic remembers, back on the Death Egg. He saved one. He saved one back there, where all the others were... He looks at the robot again. It nods, as if knowing what he was thinking. Just as he did, Sonic realized where he was. He looks around and sees huge mountains of rubble, of toppled skyscrapers and highways. He is on a road between the massive ruins, barely intact itself. He remembers what happened. He looks up at the sky and closes his eyes, having glanced at the bright sun above.

Sonic laughs. New Chaos is gone, and it doesn't matter. He looks at Silver. "You saved me?" It nods. "But I did stop it, that-" It nods again. Sonic can't think of anything else to say.

He notices that Silver is holding its hands behind its back. He tries to look around him but Silver turns. He tries the other way and Silver turns again. He looks at it. "What have you got there?" Silver beeps, and brings his hands forward.

It's all of the Emeralds. All of them. Sonic is frozen for a second before slowly looking up at Silver.

.

Silver Sonic then speaks. "Your efforts-bzt-have been mean-ing-less."

Sonic leaps forward to grab the Emeralds but Silver simply back-dashes out of his reach. "Every moment has been care-ful-ly calc-u-late-d."

Sonic tries to run at him, but his legs have no strength. With one step, he nearly stumbles over himself. "No," he says.

"Bringing you here. Bringing you now." "NO!" Sonic shouts and throws his legs forward. He loses breath and stretches his arm out to Silver's hands.

Silver just takes one step back. "It was in-ev-it-a-ble."

Sonic wants to transform. He wants all of that power again. His throat tightens and burns. His mouth stretches down and wide, his nostrils widen, his brow explodes. He takes another step, and suddenly feels his jaw launched to the right. The world spins, and briefly, he is again in the air. And then he hits the ground hard.

Silver walks over him but does not bow its head. Only its cold irises stare down at him. It still holds its coiled fist.

"Welcome to Robotnik-land," Silver Sonic says, and then launches straight up into the sky, straight above Sonic. It becomes smaller, smaller, smaller, and then, there is a flash of light.

A grey dust cloud rapidly expands from the flash with no change in density. It falls from the sky like a simple blanket while becoming larger and larger. In seconds, it obscures the sun. The world is cast in shadow and the cloud, while spreading, drips slowly back to earth. "What is this..." Sonic says to himself. The Emeralds then fall around him, clinking and bouncing about. The grey stuff covers all of the sky. Sonic gets back on his feet.

He looks around, picking up all of the Emeralds again. As he does, he hears a growing din. A horrible, immense sound of something gnashing, twisting, moving... Picking up the last of them, the air is filled with a hum, a buzzing, as if the air itself is shaking. He looks at the fallen buildings around him, unable to see any easy way out besides climbing over the rubble. The sounds are coming from every direction. He looks up again. Stalactites of the grey stuff sink onto the land as the larger cloud itself glides closer and closer. That indefinable material... Sonic recognized it. He remember seeing something... something just as large as a cloud... turn into stuff like this...

And then, it arrives. A wave of viscous goo washes over and through the surfaces of everything around him like a labyrinthine rain of large, all-consuming stringy goop. In a few more seconds, nearly every surface is already covered in it. Everything smooths out into a single surface of gray, which splashes across the few remains of the asphalt Sonic stood upon. He rapidly looks around himself for a way out, but there is nothing. Even the sky above was falling with certain doom! It's all around him, getting closer, closer! He has no power to transform. He has nowhere to go! It comes to his feet! He closes his eyes with his last degree of freedom he leaps as high as he can into the empty air!


	10. Sonic Ballistic, Part 9

Part 9

**Robotnikland** [Act 1] (9/42)

Sonic lands in a completely transformed world. In less than the half second when he was in the air, all of the goo immediately transformed and solidified. His bare feet land on cold, hard metal. He is briefly stunned by the change, but looking around he understands what the goo did... to everything.

"Roboticization..."

All of the rubble and debris of the destroyed Nexus just barely resemble the piecemeal objects they once were. Pipes, wires, energy conduits, lights, rails: every form of industrial architecture is now firmly in place over the silhouette of ruins as one metallic mass. The complicated, precisely engineered machinery interlaps and interlocks into each other into ever greater structures. The technology is far beyond Sonic's understanding from the most minute parts to the whole gargantuan complex born from almost nothing. It is definitely Robotnik's style of design, this endless machinery. Sonic looks up, only to have his view of the bright morning sky obscured by towers and smoke freshly pumped en masse out of thousands of pipes.

.

Sonic, having recovered his energy, tries running.

_Although he still moves fast, his speed is drastically reduced now that he is without his trusty power shoes, which had given his steps their incredible spring. His jump, too, is shorter than before, such that he can only make one single spin in the air for his spin attack. _

He tries climbing the steep slopes around him, but in only a few steps he loses traction and slides back down. And with no power rings, he cannot transform.

With no other option, he crouches down and charges his spin dash. He lets it loose and rolls up the sides of what was formerly the wall of a tilted skyscraper. Although his initial dash only carries him so far, he can charge his spin dash more while on the side of the wall, even as he starts to slip down. After a few such dashes he rolls up to the top and stops on the tilted 'roof'.

.

Looking past the far city limits of Nexus, Sonic watches as the goo mechanized all in its way with great speed. In no time at all, it already stretches out to the horizon. Meanwhile, everything already covered in the goo is constantly constructing and reconfiguring all the parts of the machine world, as if alive and conscious, following an unknowable intelligent design. The old world of nature and people he had come to experience, had instantly disappeared into endless artificiality as far as his eye could see. It was already done. Mobius was consumed whole.

"Right after I save the world from total destruction, the world is totally destroyed anyway..." Sonic thinks. He laughs to himself. "And I should be _dead_, but I was saved. Saved, only to see this... only to fail." He laughs again. "This _was_ Robotnik's goal. To make the world in his image... Robotnikland. He succeeded, and there is nothing left for me. He won... it's all over..."

Sonic looks around the new world. All of the individual parts of this world are customized in shape and function from what it once was, but as a whole, everything seemed to keep the same shape. Only the blue sky, the clouds and the sun floated on as if nothing had happened.

"I saw his body... I saw Mechanix shoot down his ship. But I didn't see him die... like all the others I did... Maybe that video was faked. Tails did say he attacked Mobius while I was fighting him in space. He must have planned this all. He predicted everything down to this very moment. I can't... it doesn't even seem physically possible... to plan out that much. But he always seemed to be stupider than a super-genius should be. No... it's not over. It can't be. Robotnik is still alive." He laughs again. "Just like Mechanix... I should have stopped him earlier. I... I should have _killed_ him... with my own hands." He looks at his hands, the blue fur and peach skin. He drops to his knees, looks down at the cement ground, at the tiny pulses of light buzzing between small electronics.

"It doesn't matter though... he won. I thought he was dead, I thought I could forget about him once and for all, just clear up his remains and... and he comes back, and takes away everything in an instant... I can't do anything now... There's nothing I can do. I can't even run... It's over. Haha. I lost. It's all over!" He stares blankly at the ground. He doesn't move. Doesn't think.

He raises his hands again, looks at them. "But I am alive. I have all of the Emeralds, too. I just need to... transform... and find him... and kill him... maybe there's even a way to deroboticize the world... a button on top of a capsule like before..." He laughs. "What am I saying? There's no way... there's never been a way..."

He stands up. "But... I can... I **can** kill him. I can definitely kill him now. For everyone, I must... He's the only one who wants this dead world... he killed and destroyed all for this... this lifeless, meaningless metal utopia. If I kill him... I can avenge everyone... pay back for everything he's ever done... everyone who's gone now... I kill him... end this battle once and for all... it's all... all I can do... need to kill him... have to... nothing else... nobody else... kill him... kill him... I'll search the entire world all over again... and again, and again and again... and I'll find him, and... I'll kill him. I'll kill him. I'll kill him! I'll kill him..."

.

_Sonic must now adapt to his lower speed and his lower, more vulnerable jump. He can only wall-jump once, and not very far either. As an advantage, not having shoes frees Sonic from the slipping he typically gets from suddenly changing directions or stopping after a running jump. The traction and lower jump force him to practice his precision in platforming. Sonic needs all the precision he can get as has no rings and is only one hit away from death at all times. His most useful ability right now is his spin dash, which is now his best defense but also a temporary speed booster._

The level now truly begins. Sonic must navigate a landscape that is not meant to be traversed by organic creatures. His path is difficult. There are many deep chasms dangerously spanned by distant, small platforms. These chasms are interrupted every now and then by large towers and complexes requiring precise, timed platforming to pass through or over. The placement of horizontal, angled, and vertical surfaces are very nearly random due to the chaotic template of what was once the ruins of Nexus. However, there is always a method to proceed, which is sometimes impeded and sometimes assisted by the structures manifested from the unknowable design of the roboticizing goo. Such a lack of pattern necessitates great care on planning out how to proceed, especially taking into account Sonic's weakened movement. Otherwise, one or two errors in platforming may result in immediate death as over the chasms.

In this area, Sonic's path is occasionally blocked by non-structural obstructions of some sort. Most of these can be destroyed by spin dashing through them. When he's inside structures, most doors that shut behind or before him can also be destroyed in this way.

In this area, Sonic will come across gaps too wide to jump across at his decreased top speed. With no other recourse, Sonic must boost his speed with a spin dash instead, and _then_ jump. This technique is called the 'spindash-jump', and while Sonic has always been able to do this, it is actually necessary to do it here.

Soon the difficult platforming is combined with environmental hazards such as spikes, energized platforms, and automatic turrets amongst many other types. In decreasing rate of occurrence, they can be:

- stationary,

- moving in a preset pattern,

- or targeting Sonic in some way.

Indeed, Sonic should be wary of anything that moves and any foothold that seems too convenient. With no speed and no rings, he should venture on the safe side when confronted with the laser, machine gun, and missile turrets. If he comes across a corridor of crushing pistons or a conveyor belt carrying materials that are machine-processed on-site, he might prefer to backtrack, explore around, and find a less dangerous path to take, although he could certainly take the dangerous paths if he feels confident enough. However, in some cases, particularly when he is inside, Sonic might not have any other choice _but_ take the dangerous path. Regardless of the path he chooses and more important than anything else, Sonic must hone his timing to survive.

Furthermore, in some localized areas, Sonic will find that he is not alone after all. There are roboticized Mobians, both New and Old. Many of them only move their mechanical bodies to complete whatever function was assigned to them, but there are also many that are hostile and attack Sonic on sight. Roboticized soldiers from both armies will use their old, familiar weapons against Sonic, but what were once civillians may throw small objects or their fists at Sonic. Sonic can attack any and all of them, of course. But when he destroys them, the metal does not pop in a puff of smoke and the Mobian inside instantly returns to normal and jumps and dances. No, they are all completely machines now. When Sonic attacks them, he either disables them _(like Silver Sonic II in S&K's Sky Sanctuary)_ or he dismembers their metallic parts in flashes of debris, sparks, and electric arcs. There is nothing organic inside any single one of them. Their remains are just metal shards, arcs, fire, and smoke. If Sonic waits long enough, he can watch the ground become amorphous and absorb the leftover materials back into the whole.

In addition to the roboticized anthropomorph enemies, Sonic also finds and fights the robotic minions of the New and Old Mobian armies. Every single one he has faced before, including the deadly ones he faced on the battlefield, will be somewhere patrolling. He must be stealthy and keep aware of the enemy's line of sight at all costs. Sonic should stay clear of the death-beam-androids and the death-bomb-octahedron-robots especially.

Oddly, the most familiar sight out of everything in Robotnikland are Robotnik's robots themselves. There are many of them everywhere, and surprisingly most of them are docile. While a few of them are new, most are types he has seen many times before. They are all weak. They are all destroyed and leave nothing but metal behind.

Actually, many robots use Black Stones which are removed when they are destroyed, but they are no use to Sonic despite appearing so often. However, a rare few are powered by a single power ring which will bounce out when the enemy is defeated. It cannot be stressed enough how much Sonic needs just one ring right now. Just one ring can act as a shield against hazards and attacks, and can be re-retrieved in most places. Still, even with a ring, Sonic must be careful of stronger attacks and hazards that can make him drop all of his rings, even if he painstakingly accumulated more than 20. The landscape is rarely forgiving enough to keep any more than a few rings bouncing around for Sonic.

_At this point it is effectively assumed, unless stated otherwise, that all enemies in the level are robots of the above three types. Again: roboticized Mobians, Mobian robots, and Robotnik's robots. Thus all robots can be considered enemies, but it is up to Sonic as to which ones he deems must be destroyed._

.

_Around the time the above becomes clear in-game, Sonic will find that starposts seem to appear in the safest spots, between large sections of difficulty. It doesn't matter why starposts exist even in Robotnikland... the player should never pass a starpost without activating it because of this level's very high difficulty._

At one point or another, Sonic will come across an Egg Robo that resembles Egg Hunter but with more dominating, angular and sinister forms in its design. It walks about quickly, with purpose. It holds a gun and saber attached to each hip, and a jetpack fused into its back. Even with rings, Sonic should avoid this enemy whenever it is near. This Egg Robo is called Egg Assassin. It is the deadliest Egg Robo. Its only purpose is to find Sonic and to kill him.

Egg Assassin tracks down interior corridors and flies around outside, constantly scanning its environment for any trace of where Sonic went. Broken robots, doors and obstructions catch its attention. It carefully scans the area it is in, and if Sonic is outside of that area but nearby, he should still hide out of sight and stay still. If Sonic tries to move, he should do so slowly, so as to make as little noise as possible. If Sonic makes a noise, or it is certain that Sonic is in the room from remaining evidence, such as when doors are shut but not destroyed, Egg Assassin will then perform a heat scan of the area. At this point, Sonic should either be out of the room or disguise his heat signature by being next to something that emanates heat.

- If Sonic is detected but he's far enough to try to escape, Egg Assassin pulls out its gun, aims at Sonic, and fires a gossamer beam that pierces through all surfaces and instantly kills Sonic, no matter how many rings he has. Sonic can try to feint out of Egg Assassin's aim, but it will try and predict where he will go next within a second. It is possible to escape at this range, but it's extremely difficult. At a long enough distance, its heat scanner becomes unable to make out Sonic and it will pursue him until it can again.

- If he is detected and nearby, Egg Assassin rockets towards Sonic. If there's nothing in the way to slow him down, Egg Assassin will move faster than Sonic and intercept him no matter what. It will pin Sonic to some surface, pull out its blade and stab Sonic in the heart, instantly killing him.

Sonic can try to attack Egg Assassin, but it moves much, much faster than he can at the moment. Even if Sonic somehow surprised it and landed a hit, it takes 60 hits to defeat before it simply flees for the time being.

_Since it is highly unlikely that Sonic can avoid any (or all) of Egg Assassin's attacks _and _land 60 hits,__ the logistics of the battle will not be explained right now._

Being deadlier than everything else Sonic will encounter, Sonic should avoid the Egg Assassin whenever he sees it. It will kill him.

.

Besides staying alive, Sonic's secondary goal should be to attempt to accumulate 50 rings so he can transform to Ultra Sonic and become invincible to everything that is tormenting him here. _This wasn't mentioned earlier, but Ultra Sonic can survive crushing hazards which will just stop at head-level instead. _Ultra Sonic could fly over the landscape and just avoid everything except the flying enemies. With all the Black Stones around that sounds wonderful, but Ultra Sonic can still be killed if he's trapped in a strong ambush or if he fights Egg Assassin. Egg Assassin will stay at medium range facing Ultra Sonic constantly firing lasers, only dashing close for an instant kill whenever he detransforms. The main problem for Ultra Sonic is the dearth of rings. Aside from collecting rings from enemies one at a time, there are a few rare areas densely protected with robots guarding capsules containing from 10 to 100 rings.

.

Sonic eventually reaches an area devoid of enemies or hazards or abysses. The ground is flat and steady. He moves slowly down the empty, transformed streets between abandoned towers of cement and steel. The relics of the immediate past, the broken automobiles, the vending machines, the street lamps and traffic lights, all are nowhere to be seen. The doors and windows of the thousands of Nexus buildings had disappeared under the new mechanizations, leaving the old ruined structures barren of any comprehensible function, with a sleek metal skin smooth, flat and alien. Sonic looks around once again and realizes he is lost. Lost within the endless matrix of cold inanimacy, deprived of all meaning, individual and collective.

"Sonic..." He hears! A young voice. He stops and looks around again. "Hello?" Sonic asks. Nobody responds. He turns his head, looking at every road and path in view. "Is anyone there?" Nothing. "I definitely heard someone..." Sonic thinks, and decides to run down an alleyway close to him to explore.

There are no dumpsters, bags of trash, boxes or fire escapes. No chain-link fences, back entryways, suspicious persons waiting with concealed plans. Just bare walls and ground; straight lines and flat planes; gray, black, white. At the end of the alley he comes to another wall, trying to imagine what the person could look like with that voice he heard. And trying to replay the voice in his head, he finds he can hardly recall it.

Something stares at him from the side. Noticing, he puts his attention into his peripherals an instant before he moves his eyes and head, watching a figure cast in shadows turn and run and disappear like smoke in the wind. "Wait!" Sonic shouts, his head turned completely, facing the direction. No one is there. He looks on both sides of the narrow passage and finds nothing to hide behind, nowhere to go. He looks up and the walls contain his eyesight until he cranks his neck back the farthest it can go, being able to see a sliver of blue sky trapped between the two walls high above. Nothing else.

"Whatever it is... it's fast," Sonic concludes. He continues on, walking down the alley, wondering if it's the same as the person that called his name. This alley intersects with another, and that alley with another. Sonic just selects each turn as randomly as possible, avoiding going in loops, but he seems lost in a labyrinth of narrow, perpendicular paths. Just as he thinks such, he sees an opening. On the other side are buildings only a few stories tall. Interested, he slowly walks close only to hide when he sees a group of robots walk by.

Yet, they walked by with an organic, springy pace. He peers out of the alley and sees hundreds of robots, both former organics and completely artificial new types, interacting with each other like commoners at a market. He looks at the short buildings ahead of him, with their open windows filled with raw ores and standardized parts. Robots behind the counters exchange them after a split-second laser scan on the purchasing robots' heads. They line up in queues, talking to each other in a very fast electronic language, before grabbing their items and moving on to some other area. Sonic walks out of the alley and nobody seems to notice him.

The robots walk in groups, coordinated in groups in several filed lines. He watches as they converse, moving their arms, hands and heads, seemingly reacting with emotion. Individually, they seem to be self-conscious and moving of their own will, but collectively, their movements are organized in precise patterns. He walks into the crowd strangely unnoticed.

Not long after Sonic starts exploring the labyrinth of the marketplace does he come across a commotion amongst the robots. Many of them move towards a common destination, forming a wide circle around something. Sonic squeezes through and sees in the center the familiar design of a Mechanix Child, surrounded by other robots of more mundane detail. There are several large cart robots filled with materials and packages grouped in tight rows. Two guard robots in chunky armor wielding electric halberds surround both sides of the taller Child who seems to be the center of attention. It has long, thin plates covering its bodies like feathers, with an aquiline head. It converses with a storeowner and hands over an emblem. The merchant retreats into the back of his small stall and shortly afterwards a steady stream of short bots roll over to the cart-bots, holding baskets full of Black Stones, and they attach the baskets to small hooks on the sides of the carts. The hooks then slowly elevate up a track and pour the contents into the cart proper.

As they do so, the Child suddenly turns to Sonic and the crowd to his sides backs away. He looks at them who look back at him. With all of them having only eyes and no mouthes or moving facial parts, he cannot tell their reaction. He looks back at the Child who walks three slow steps towards him.

"Thou Divine Destroyer, our father possesses desire for dialogue. Would thou be becoming of fulfillment?" it says, with a synthetic yet soft voice. Sonic is at once bewildered by what he was just called, and amused by its startling politeness.

The first thing Sonic asks is, "Your father? Do you mean... Robotnik?"

Immediately there is a reaction in every single robot besides the Child of a quick few spasms in their bodies. The Child calmly responds, "That is my foolish error; I disregarded the cultural parameter. In our world, the components of the great one machine whom had executed our functions before us are the ones we consider as our predecessors in the manner that most resembles what you lexically assign as 'family'. The Divine Creator, whom you identify as "Robotnik", does not execute any of our functions and therefore is not a 'father' in our cognitive operation. The Divine Creator is God and we know nought but to obey his perfect will. My father is - whom you assign string 'Mechanix'"

Now it's Sonic who reacts with a quick spasm. Right then the Child interjects, "Your error is equal to mine. 'Life' or 'death' are not relevant parameters of the great one machine. You of the flesh may understand more clearly during the exchange of information with my father. I humbly suggest it is towards your interest."

Sonic, who was considering the veracity of these robots' conscious existence in their so-called 'great one machine' in comparison to everything he has come to understand, realized through logic he had little other choice but to say, "I'll talk to him. Where is he?"

The Child slowly and gracefully bows low to him. At this, there is an even more powerful shock of spasms throughout the bystanders and a growing high-pitched murmur of analytical observations, incomprehensible to Sonic of course. Upon rising again, the Child shoots a glance around the crowd which causes their frantic movements to suddenly cease. In milliseconds, all of them became still. The Child returns to looking at Sonic.

"I have finished the summoning of a physical transport to the Hub. I shall go with you only so far as its entrance as I have tasks in queue to be completed. There, I will additionally make a request for a direct pathway to my father to be set at maximum priority for you, O Divine Destroyer. Continuing forward, I humbly make a request of you to accept a temporary change of my attention in this moment."

Before Sonic can respond, the Child again looks at the crowd. In less than a second they quickly turn and return to their previous affairs as if suddenly disinterested in Sonic and the Child. Sonic looks around and sees that the cart-robots had disappeared without him noticing it. As he turns his head then, he catches a sheen of light bounce off some metal zooming through the sky. The object slows down overhead and its wings rotate in place as it hovers above. It gradually lowers itself besides them. Sonic wonders at how fast things seem to go here, but being remotely familiar with the workings of such advanced machinery already, he concludes that there must be an invisible digital "world" that connects everything at speeds his organic mind couldn't match.

He looks around yet again, wondering, "If that's the case, then they could all create a plan to kill me in less than a second and I would never even know. Robots were attacking me earlier, so why all this peace and hospitality? If they all follow Robotnik's commands then..."

The ship hovers above the ground and lowers a large floating platform from its hull onto the metal floor of the plaza. The carts from before appear from elsewhere in the market and roll in a line onto the platform, while the Child and the two guards walk onto its other side. Sonic follows then, still thinking about the situation. "They say Robotnik is alive. They say _Mechanix_ is alive... what the fuck?! And I'm just following them... these **enemies**... If I had my shoes – no, if I was Ultra Sonic, then... I could simply _blast_ through all of these robots, obliterate them easily... Although, I still wouldn't know where to go... damn it, I actually need their help! I have to risk it. Trust in them just enough... fuck. Fucking damn it! This... None of this feels right!" And so Sonic finishes that train of thought as the platform rises back to the ship.

He watches the market stalls shrink away. The hundreds of robots moving in geometric paths at a steady pace like set on conveyor belts. He imagines what this place was in Nexus, perhaps a park or some public space. It is surrounded by tall, lifeless buildings in all directions. It's then he notices that all of the buildings had been slowly moving and reshaping themselves into new designs no longer chaotically laid about from the aftermath of New Chaos.

The platform rises inside the hull, attaches to the floor and locks shut, sealing the volume of air within. There are no windows inside the ship, just a strip of soft lighting and the rest is dark steel. The cart-bots move in reverse and wait in the back, as seats are pulled down tracks before Sonic and the Child. Even a table rolls in. Sonic carefully sits as the Child does, and the two guards remain standing behind it. Sonic eyes them.

"Why do you call me "Divine Destroyer"?" Sonic asks suddenly.

Not missing a beat, the Child responds, "I shall explain. The great one machine sustains an axiomatic perspective on the order of spatio-temporal events in all ranges, minute to absolute. It is perfected 'religion' and 'science'. In this semantic structure, it is known that our world, our duties, and our existence are nothing more than byproducts of the conflict between you, Sonic the hedgehog, the untouchable agent of annihilation, the Divine Destroyer, and Doctor Robotnik, the untouchable agent who begot our world in his image, the Divine Creator. Compared to God and Anti-God, the great one machine only exists and nothing more. We can be destroyed and recreated infinitely with no effect to either of you. There are millions of principles which follow, but in essence, individually and collectively it is known that we exist only for ourselves."

Sonic is amused. "I suppose that's true. Your world hasn't existed for more than a few hours at most."

"Our perception of the distance of greater and lesser intervals of asymmetric change, or 'time', from our individual experiences, is greatly different from your perception. I will illustrate it. In unstressed conditions, what would you consider as the smallest moment of 'time'?"

Sonic, for a split second, decides not to accurately answer the question. "A second."

"In the same conditions, it is 100 microseconds for us. Macro-operations such as physical movement and audible communication constantly test our mechanical consistency. The majority of the subjectivity of the great one machine operates within the much faster digital substrate. Now, I humbly ask you to stand."

Sonic does so and the chairs and table are pulled back away. The floor unlocks and the platform below them starts to lower. Sonic takes the chance to observe his new surroundings but finds every angle obscured by large walls all around. As it lowers farther, he sees a tremendous building standing before him, with sloping steel walls and sleek chrome roofs. Under the shadow of the wide eaves are hanging electric lanterns brightly shining multiple tints of color lengthwise across the smooth featureless surfaces. Two rows of columns stand about the sides of a thin, elevated glass walkway that rises from the landing pad straight into the castle. An unnatural silence pervades the air. The platform lands on the ground.

The Child bows and says, "O Divine Destroyer, from thee I remove my inferior presence. My father awaits thee within the Hub at the end of this path here. Thy life unending." It then briskly walks off in the opposite direction with its guards keeping pace behind. They watch Sonic as they walk past him.

.

Sonic walks down the pathway and enters the castle. The main hall is long and narrow, one wall covered with windows and the other overlaid with colonnades and arches. As he walks, a pair of sliding doors to his left opens up.

He enters the next room. It is large but filled with columns, and its short ceiling lays bare the criss-crossing steel beams. He sees about 40 Mechanix Children sitting on their bended legs with heads bowed, making no motion or sound. On the distant other side of the room there is another pair of sliding doors which opens up before him. From there, a short hallway leads to a stairway.

As he ascends the stairs, Sonic looks out the windows. The castle is still largely obscured by tall, interior walls and towers, which themselves have their own walls and towers. On every floor is another short hallway leading to other wide rooms. The silhouettes of Children glide about in quiet business. Sonic climbs several flights until he reaches the top, noticing the connecting rooms shrink in size.

On the top floor, Sonic finds himself in a gigantic, windowless room with massive colonnades on both sides holding huge, sweeping beams that support a vaulted ceiling cast in darkness. The marble floor is completely empty save for a polished, bright red wood path down the center that stands in great contrast with the colorless, bleak metal and stone all around it. At the end of the path are 3 wide stairs below a very tall sliding door. To his right and left are small bowls holding some ever-flammable solid material that burned a bright blue, that nevertheless could not shine away the heavy darkness hanging down from above. He notices that between the columns are Children wearing heavy armor and wielding heavy weaponry, their tiny laser-like eyes following Sonic as he walked past. He reaches the small stairs and climbs them.

Just as he does, the great doors automatically slide before him. He enters a tall, yet small square room with a floor that has engraved with simple rectangles. The ceiling is flat and suspended under it is a single electric light glowing softly. The other 3 walls of the room have large sliding doors in them as well. There is a single pillow on the floor, a blue round one. Sonic eyes it suspiciously when the doors ahead of him suddenly start to open and those behind him move to close. The doors slide beyond the walls and this reveals ahead another square room exactly like this one. Sitting on a square white pillow on the other side is Mechanix in a new style of body. Its style is remarkably similar to the austere design of the castle, being very simple with every detail profoundly subtle in its form.

"I suppose you're surprised to see me," Mechanix says with the same familiar voice, although it seems more toneless than before. "You'll want to take a seat." He motions to the blue pillow. Sonic asks, "How do I know you're you?"

Mechanix answers, "I'm just the same me as I was before. My corpse was re-roboticized not long after you defeated me. I was not long enough in the darkness to forget. I can remember everything from before. I remember dying... and everyone I killed. I am free... but only to talk. Doctor Robotnik programmed new behavior locks that I cannot easily disable internally. But I am trying..."

"I think I'll stand." Sonic answers. "Are you saying he can now roboticize the dead?"

"No. He can roboticize _anything_ now. He has mastered the rapid creation of minuscule roboticization machines that can reconstruct matter at the molecular level. The Eraser Egg used a prototype version."

Sonic asks, "So, if it's like that, everything I attack can now regenerate?"

"Yes. So when we do fight, you must absolutely obliterate me." Sonic looks at him. "After that, you can enter the First Gate. It will teleport you closer to where Robotnik is. There's two gates before you reach his central base, and him within it." Sonic sighs, looking away. "What's wrong, Sonic?"

"So, Robotnik must have roboticized himself, right? That's how he's still alive?"

There's a pause. Sonic looks at Mechanix and sees small quirks in his motionless composure. "I can't answer that question, Sonic... It's redirecting all of my actions. "

"_Is_ he still alive?" Sonic asks.

Mechanix is silent.

"Robotnik is usually straightforward, but now he's playing with me?"

The door to Sonic's left slides open and a thin cylindrical robot moves rapidly across the floor without a sound. It crouches down and pushes a plastic box in front of Sonic. Glancing at the robot which quickly returns to behind the closing door, he takes the lid off and sees his power shoes.

He looks slowly up at Mechanix. "Can you talk now?"

Mechanix explains, "I'm tightly constrained. All I can say is that these are a gift from Doctor Robotnik."

"This is obviously a trap, as if I'm that stupid. Sometimes I wonder if Robotnik was ever as smart as he made out himself to be," Sonic states.

Mechanix suddenly lurches forward but quickly regains his composure. "He freed me... No, Sonic, don't underestimate him! He's hiding the truth from you...! Don't trust anything, not even me!"

Sonic doesn't move. "He wanted you to say that." Mechanix doesn't react.

"I was wondering... why would Robotnik re-use you, Mechanix, after you tried to kill him? That seemed the more important question than how you and him are still alive... if either of you even are. Here you are nothing more than an autonomous puppet, your strings visible. He wants me to think about it, doesn't he?"

Mechanix nods. "But _don't_ think about it, Sonic. He's doing the same thing I did! Psychological warfare, Sonic!"

Sonic smiles, "I know that. I remember the hallucinations."

Mechanix, still motionless, says, "haha. Good, you don't trust me at all then? It makes my position rather redundant, does it not?"

Sonic looks at Mechanix. "I see now. It's a question he wants me to answer. Do I think you have the original conscience of the hedgehog inside Mechanix, or are you completely artificial? Do I destroy you or spare you... (and die myself)."

He starts walking into Mechanix's square room and ambles around him. "He obviously knows that I already know that you were nothing more than a very powerful roboticization of an actual person. He wants to play with my emotions, but I'm not letting him. If he's actually smart, he must have a plan for if I simply destroy you and move on, but he never does that. He never sends his stronger enemies first. I always succeed because I keep getting better. But he planned it out this far, it must all be intentional. It's almost like... he's shaping where I'm going to go, what I do. So I can't trust him at all. I can only use my talents, my skills, my power, to defeat this world, his world."

He stops, standing in front of him. "I've been in his bases before, surrounded by things he created meant to destroy me. I've defeated _him_ so many times. I was young, at first, but I quickly realized he was horrible at what he was doing. I thought it was fun and I quickly perfected the art of bot-bashing."

He walks back to his square room, keeping his eyes on Mechanix. "He could never finish his life's goal until now, when he does it nearly instantly as if it everything before was a joke. Maybe he's gotten better or maybe he's always had this plan! Of course I'm suspicious of everything now, but it doesn't scare me if that's true. It's just more difficulty."

He smiles at the other side of the blue pillow. "His mind games can't be much worse than yours."

Mechanix is silent. He says, "You didn't answer my question."

Sonic laughs. "Maybe I should sit down."

Mechanix looks towards Sonic. "If you do, take off your shoes."

"Ha, I get it. You know, those shoes are good replicas-" Sonic says as he turns to look at them, although he did really do it to check his feet for shoes. "Ahh!" He shouts and nearly jumps while looking down. He is wearing the new power shoes. He did not actually expect them to be there despite checking.

"So now that you're here, am I going to hallucinate now? Is that it?" Sonic asks.

Mechanix stands up rather slowly. Sonic tries to hold up his grin. Mechanix chuckles once. "Psychological warfare is useful, but it is not real. I carefully slipped those shoes on you myself. When you were walking around."

Sonic knits his brow. "I was staring at you the entire time! You _were_ that fast before... but I have the Emeralds now, not you!"

Mechanix laughs. "Sonic, I'm being swallowed up again. I can't stop it, he's going to make me attack you soon! Remember, you have to... have to destroy me!"

Sonic tries pulling off his shoes. They tighten as if by their own will. "A trap. I didn't have a choice after all."

Mechanix starts shaking and wobbles backwards into the wall behind him. "It's an experiment... Sonic... no! Don't listen to me, anymore! He's –" he stops talking.

All of the doors suddenly open around them. To the left and right are short hallways with windows that look out into the open blue sky. Behind him, a mechanical frame slides together from the slots where the doors were in. Connected, it immediately activates. Within the mechanical frame is a picture of an oblong tunnel that passes through what looks like a completely mechanical cityscape.

Mechanix looks up. His eyes have changed color to red. Sonic suddenly feels a wave of hostility drawing the cordiality away from the dry room. "Robotnik's final warning: prepare yourself."

The walls and ceiling start bending into one single smooth, curved surface. It forms a funnel leading into the frame. The transformation happens quicker than Sonic can realize what's happening and run away. He trips on the slippery surface and desperately grabs onto the blue pillow, which somehow remains still and just the same. Gravity seems to be changing direction as he hangs onto the pillow which is now floating high in the air inside the funnel. He looks up at Mechanix who bends and twists his body. Pieces of the surface of his body flake off and rain around Sonic into the portal. Mechanix's body underneath is a smaller, highly reflective body with globular arms, legs, body and head.

"You were the one who died then. This is hell!" He says in a much more sinister voice, heavily synthesized with sawtooth waves. The pillow dislodges like a feather blown in the wind. Sonic falls helplessly towards the portal when Mechanix zips around him and prepares to attack.

.

[Act 1 Boss: NEO-MECHANIX]

Sonic has only about a second to transform before he falls into Neo-Mechanix. If he does fall that close, at that very moment that they would touch, Neo-Mechanix will appear from behind him and strike him down into the portal at high speeds, to then punch him in the face on the other side. This will kill Sonic. He has no choice but to transform.

In Ultra form, Neo-Mechanix simply just falls back into the portal and causes the funnel to crumble into irregular pieces that topple down over Sonic. Even if he stays still, the weight will be enough to push him through. Once on the other side, the portal closes and Neo-Mechanix jets off backwards into the oblong tunnel while facing Sonic. Sonic chases.

They slowly accelerate down the tube as robot onlookers from the city stop their activities to observe the fight. At first only a few stop to look as they aren't going fast enough to be noticed. As the battle goes on, Sonic may suddenly find himself going at speeds beyond what he could even as Super Sonic. Entire blocks of buildings pass by in less than a second. Eerily, many of the robot citizens are observing the tube and the neon glow of their eyes leave tracers in the rushing blur of the background.

_It should be noted how fast Neo-Mechanix is. Ultra Sonic moves much faster than normal or even Super Sonic, but here Ultra Sonic has to _keep up_ and chase down Neo-Mechanix. _

_Also, if Ultra Sonic detransforms, the battle will quadruple in difficulty. Neo-Mechanix's lowest level attacks will take out nearly all of normal Sonic's rings with 1-2 hits, and conversely, normal Sonic's attack damage against Neo-Mechanix is a quarter of what Ultra Sonic can deal out._

_._

Neo-Mechanix has two modes of attack: close-range and long-range. They do weak damage to Ultra Sonic and extremely strong damage to normal Sonic.

In close-range he can attack from any angle, including down from above and back to behind him. He can also vary his attacking rhythm to throw Sonic off. However, due to Sonic's new strength, his attacks have much less effect than before, and so Neo-Mechanix must make up for it with speed, baits and feints. He should not be underestimated even now, as if he is left to finish a combination, Neo-Mechanix can eliminate hundreds of rings.

His close-range attacks are:

- Punch

- He can change the direction of this in mid-air to a punch of any angle or height.

- He can change the power of the punch, rarely during the punch itself, between 6 levels. If it is stronger, it will be slightly slower and vice versa. He adjusts the level to Sonic's situational vulnerability.

- Kick

- He can change the power between 5 levels of kicks. His more powerful kicks require the rotation of his entire body, so they are significantly slower.

- Spin attack

- He can charge a spin dash 4 times faster than Sonic's charge speed and be shot out 4 times faster as well.

- He can untuck in mid-air to attack with a punch or kick instead.

- Explosive blast attack

- Along with radiating this explosion from himself, he can propel the fireball towards Sonic. He glows brightly before unleashing it and this makes him vulnerable to attack, but the power of being damaged from the fireball could take away all of Sonic's rings._  
_

.

His long-range attacks are:

- Energy beams. They all have different patterns and rhythms of movement, such as a simple sine wave or a bouncing straight line. Although they are tiny and rather weak, they are everywhere in short notice and the interweaving patterns make it hard to avoid them all. This can drain Sonic's rings rather quickly if he does not evade effectively enough. There is a set limit to the amount of beams there can be nearby, and it's somewhere around 40.

- If he shoots from ahead, the beams are much faster but quickly disappear behind them. If he shoots from behind, the beams are slower and fill up the moving battle space.

- He can make the beams stronger at the expense of how many there are at once.

- Bombs

- Explosion bombs are thrown at and around Sonic to create spreading shock waves, that can push Sonic around, and spreading balls of fire, that Sonic can just barely squeeze through.

- Implosion bombs are thrown at and around Sonic to slow him down by pulling him towards their super-low pressure centers. If he falls in, he will lose rings at a very fast pace until the implosion ends.

- Both bomb types can link together as the implosion sucks in the fire in a wide vortex. The two spin around each other, making the attack larger, but they are exhausted more quickly too.

- He may also use an energy whip that he snaps at Sonic. If it connects, it wraps around Sonic's body and drains rings from him at a moderate pace. He can somewhat control Sonic's movements and try to slam him into the ceiling or floor. Sonic can only lose the whip by directly attacking Neo-Mechanix's body and dispeling the whip's energy.

.

After 40 hits, the tunnel goes underground, lit only by small, passing lights. The two and the tunnel are lit in strobes. Neo-Mechanix backs off and says, "I have created a utopia: a harmonious society made of autonomous individuals who choose altruistic work. There is no violence, no usury, no lies nor vice. It is perfect. A world only machines could make."

"I don't care," Sonic responds. Neo-Mechanix replies, "Everything you know is ours. You have no reason to fight."

Sonic repeats, "I don't care. I'll fight until Robotnik is dead. That's all. That's all that matters now." Neo-Mechanix laughs. It sounds like bursts of white noise.

"It's true. You _are_ losing your sanity. You should have died thousands of times, but now the weight of reality is crushing your subconscious into its minimum state. He won. The Doctor **won**, Sonic..." Sonic doesn't respond, but his expression doesn't change either.

Neo-Mechanix continues. "You really don't care anymore. About reason, about history or the future. It's all a blur to you, isn't it? You're nothing more than the difference to your goal."

He is silent for a moment. So is Sonic, who knew that what he said was right. He didn't react to knowing that. He couldn't. He felt nothing.

"The great one machine questions all paths to find the optimum. You cling to only one until you die. You're more of a machine than us, Sonic."

Sonic says, "You're right. I only care about winning."

The tunnel suddenly stops moving, although both of them still are. All of the tube's surfaces are peeled away, polygon by polygon, and what is left behind is nothing but empty black space. Neo-Mechanix slows to a stop and Sonic does too. Neo-Mechanix hovers up, into what would be air. A dim, blurry light grows from behind him.

"If you were roboticized, you would be part of us. You would love it. We could be friends here..." He stops. Neo-Mechanix very slowly bends over his waist while floating. He very slowly raises his arms and clutches his head. He starts violently shaking his head back and forth at a frantic pace. His body twitches and convulses. "Sonic!" It's the same voice as in the castle. "They enslaved our entire species, ripped apart every family by decree of law, worked us to death, abused, tortured, slaughtered us. They sought our complete genocide. Zaga, Knuckles, those fucking echidnas!" A lick of fire flashes in his eyes. The distant light grows brighter, starting to shape space in the void.

"You and I are the last of the hedgehogs. We sought peace against injustice for people that were not our own, and we attained it countless times with a power beyond the gods'. I greatly wish to end this fighting with our power and know you as a brother in peace."

The light from behind suddenly bursts forward into view. Far in the distance are glowing concentric circles in 8 different magnitudes of size, made of nothing but light and shape. They are gently rotating against each other like toothless gears as small, constantly transforming line patterns dance in 3d revolutions around them. It is strangely very soothing to look at.

Sonic never looked at it. He watches as Neo-Mechanix's body glows white hot and his eyes burn an almost blinding red color. He expected Neo-Mechanix saying, "So I shall end this fight now."

At points in space very close to him, glowing white straight lines form small 3d wireframe objects that gather together and then connect onto Neo-Mechanix's body. In a flash they zip across space and drag Neo-Mechanix towards the largest circle of the light shapes far off in the distance. Sonic doesn't move but follows him with his eyes.

When he is attached to the center of the largest circle, his body flashes with light, a pinprick in the distance to Sonic's eye. A blip later and the light is charging through all of the circles and propagating even through the infinite grid-floor. The light flies towards and past Sonic. Neo-Mechanix flashes with light again, jouncing the circle's rotation which follows to all the others. The next wave of light comes at such speeds the green grid ground bends in a swiftly approaching transverse wave. Before it arrives there's another blink.

.

_The camera rotates 90 degrees to connect Sonic's position with Neo-Mechanix and the light form. All of his attacks damage Sonic._

- Neo-Mechanix unleashes a bullet hell upon Sonic, thousands of bullets of differently moving and shaped types, together forming several interlocking patterns on the 2d plane. The new battle space is very wide and near-infinitely high above the mesh ground. His attacks become just as large as they expand out of the digital cannon he created, which Sonic doesn't see so far away at first. At Sonic's starting distance, their spacing is wide enough to be easily avoided, so Neo-Mechanix targets his position with laser beams.

- With the laser, he targets Sonic even to the minute angle change made when he merely jumps, and fires it even when changing his aim. Doing this weakens the beam's strength however, as it blurs from the starting to current firing position. Whether it's a straight or changed shot, the beam fades away quickly after. He targets Sonic and fires again after a few seconds, so Sonic must keep track of this along with the maze of bullets.

-Surprising Sonic the first time, in between laser shots Neo-Mechanix will detach and disappear from his position on the light circle and instantly appear right next to Sonic to attack him directly. He attacks without stopping, often throwing in feints to pressure Sonic towards the closest projectiles. This is only lasts a second to a second and a half, where there is a brief respite before another laser attack.

- As Sonic gets closer to the light, Neo-Mechanix creates large wireframe blocks that are then slammed and sent sliding or flying towards Sonic to push him away and remove his space to freely move. He will throw more and more until Sonic must seek the negative space between all of the hurtling blocks to get through. He can break through the blocks, but this requires a mid-air spindash which may send him into a laser or bullet wave if he's careless. When he creates blocks, he can't attack directly.

- He can cause the ground to pinch into a spike that bursts upwards below Sonic's position. It's not fatal in Ultra form, but it is still a very strong attack.

- He can also cause the ground to be pinched and stretched out into multiple polygonal tentacles that swat at Sonic for low but rapid damage.

- If Sonic is free of damage for a good while and when he is considerably close, Neo-Mechanix charges with light and flashes it through all the forms, projecting waves through the grid medium. This time, the waves' frequencies are much higher and they will deal severe damage to Ultra Sonic if he is hit by them. He may send out multiple wave fronts, with different altitudes, wavelengths, and rhythms.

- If Sonic is stationary for more than two seconds at any time, Neo-Mechanix will start forming a cage around his position. If it is completely built, it instantly fills with matter, disintegrating Sonic and killing him even in Ultra form.

.

Eventually, the space is filled with the bright light of the great circle and its matter-less surface and the even brighter bullets and lasers densely fill up the space of that light. Sonic finally sees Neo-Mechanix up close. He is contained in a large mechanical body of chrome armor, which then detaches from the circle which is effectively the back wall of the fighting space. Each piece of the armor takes up to 10 hits to be crumpled before fading into wireframes that then break apart and scatter.

Now on the defensive, Neo-Mechanix forsakes direct combat and environmental manipulation, and instead uses his digital over-body to run or fly around Sonic and attack with:

- punches and swings from his giant fists,

- large energy beams,

- swipes with his plasma sword

- and of course directed fire from the 50 cannons all over his armor.

Once Sonic can find space to attacks his actual body within, he must proceed to punish him relentlessly because Neo-Mechanix retains his innate ability to regenerate. _He recovers 1 hit every 5 seconds._

_._

Once Neo-Mechanix suffers 30 hits or more, he flies back onto the circle and reattaches. He glows white, and still glowing the whole light form is charged to the maximum limit with energy, spinning rapidly, the line patterns blurred into rings and ribbons. It slowly slides backwards but picks up speed, eventually accelerating to Neo-Mechanix's initial top speed.

- He fires massive energy beams of flashing rainbow color which create shockwaves that reverberate powerfully throughout the infinite grid of the digital space. The waves deal the same damage as before and are uniform in shape, but there is a continuous line of them down the side of the vast beam. This makes staying near the ground a tight squeeze between the wave crests and the beam's sizzling bottom. The energy beam itself is extremely strong and will kill Ultra Sonic at less than 300 rings. He cannot angle this attack, so the space above the beam is safest.

- He fires several smaller, moderately fast beams which curve around in space and follow Sonic's movements for up to 5 seconds.

Sonic must give chase, avoid the attacks and attack Neo-Mechanix even though he is filled with energy. _He recovers 1 hit every 3 seconds._

_._

After 20 more hits, all of the armor scatters and his light disappears. Neo-Mechanix stops attacking but he still flies backwards, away from Sonic. The two fly past the light forms now growing dimmer and dimmer. The largest circle stops moving instantly and each successively smaller circle slows down to a halt. A static-y white fuzz of light starts to brighten out of the darkness until they breach the last circle.

They are now in a dark, cold room made of blackened steel, lit only by the few tiny LEDs blinking on various machines and computers. Neo-Mechanix buckles over and falls down on the metal grating that is the floor and the hollow sound echoes throughout the room. Sonic looks below the grating and only sees darkness.

.

"Sonic! Kill me now!" Mechanix calls out. "Before I regenerate again... Hurry!"

Sonic instead looks at the new surroundings. "That must have been the First Gate then. The technology here... seems more advanced. More refined. If his nano-goo is evolving like this-"

"Don't ignore me, you stupid bastard! Kill me quickly! You'll die!"

Sonic looks at him indifferently. "If Robotnik can bring anyone back from the dead, then really, there's no point in fighting any of you besides getting you out of my way. The only person that really needs to die... is Robotnik. Everything else is meaningless." He starts walking away, towards the steel blast door on the other side of the room.

"You're not Mechanix, anyway. You're a stale copy with no living soul. The real Mechanix would have never lost to me a second time, if he really wanted me dead."

Neo-Mechanix's body starts convulsing, while his eyes stay focused on Sonic. "Mobius is ours, and it is ours forever. There is no de-roboticization, there is only deactivation. There is no destruction, there is only regeneration. Life is extinct. You deny that even you will die. And you will die. All victory is hopeless."

Sonic says neutrally, "I gave up thinking I can 'win' long ago. I've already lost everything before any of this even happened." He paused, reflecting intensely on something. The pause draws out into an uncanny silence as Sonic stares into space. Neo-Mechanix's body fizzles out and only his head remains active.

In a quiet, weak voice, Sonic speaks from somewhere else entirely, his body frozen. "I'm a warrior... not a hero... a man of battle... an agent of violence... All I've ever known, all I can ever do, all that ever happens is fighting. Enemy, place, enemy, place. Fight, fight, fight... or die. Fight, fight, fight..."

"Robotnik... always the enemy. Always the enemy. Now it's everything. Everything he can. A real fight. The final fight. All of Mobius... everyone... everything... always the enemy. Probably even holding back... Attacking my mind... hurting me in every way... everything... always the enemy... nothing left... is he scared, too?"

There is another silence, Neo-Mechanix no longer having enough energy to speak. Sonic hasn't moved even his eyes from the one fixed spot.

"Maybe... he's tired too... no... he isn't even trying. This is all a joke... a game... doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Him or anyone... no choice... nothing else... no one else... only the enemy... always the enemy..."

He slowly moves his legs, step by step, lumbering towards the door, stumbling on misplaced steps. "Have to fight... need to... _kill_ him... need to kill him... everything... end it all... kill him... have to... must... do it... kill... kill him... kill him... kill him..." He continues mumbling, staring at nothing. The locks on the door unseal before him and the two blocks slide away, opening the way to the passage ahead. Sonic walks through, and the door seals shut again.

Mechanix stares at the door. In the iota of subjectivity within his digital mind, there was nothing but fear of an incomprehensible annihilation. Only thinking, "He's insane."

.

[Act 2]

_From here on, it is assumed Sonic has enough rings to stay transformed as Ultra Sonic and never chooses to transform back. All enemies' attacks and death traps will affect him normally if he is in normal mode._

Sonic runs down a long, triangular hallway with its walls covered with machinery and piping. Dim fluorescents keep most of the red-tinged metal in darkness, flying by like laser pulses. The room starts twisting around at an increasing rate before opening into a large tunnel consisting of rotating cylinders holding together a large, complicated energy-creating device. Sonic will only slow down if he runs into the obstructions, so he can try spindashing in mid-air to fit into the small space within the machine. Within, he must carefully spin dash, air spin dash, and jump to clear the small gaps between the rotating structures. At the end, he'll enter one of several maintenance tunnels that curve around wildly, going in every direction before popping out the side of a massive, sheer metal wall.

Sonic is launched into the air of a massive mechanical city seemingly contained within an even more massive structure. Although most of the "buildings" have parallel planes, they are not all lined up and nor is there a shared floor or ceiling. Rectangular prisms and pyramids of various widths, faces and angles make up the majority of the solids. Everything is saturated with curved, orthogonal, rough, smooth, shiny, clear and opaque textures, as well as with bright lamps, sequential lights, glowing pipes transferring luminescent fluids, and pulsating energy tunnels. Everything had a purpose, all is necessary, but there is just so much that meaning and context become so macroscopic as to be invisible.

He lands on a long catwalk suspended between the last building and another far, far away with no supports, seemingly hovering. As he runs, he is immediately assaulted by the constant projectile fire of flying robots and mounted turrets. He is invincible, of course, and so this poses no threat. Rather quickly, the catwalk reaches a large net of other catwalks and pylons going in every direction. Sonic can choose to wall-jump up or leap off to go in a different direction, but even if he keeps on running it's all the same.

In any of the paths, he'll either enter a building or come to a tubular road. The buildings are standard fare for Robotnik's industrial design although more compressed in detail. They are filled with robots including roboticized people (although less of them relative to the last act), and containing many hazards that Sonic will be invincible to anyway. Indeed, inside, he may suddenly find himself in a room with a falling ceiling that can't crush him, or a room filled with harmless spikes or grinders. On the tubes, he can run around their perimeter while following their curvy course through the 3D maze of a mechanical city, sometimes even as they enter buildings through dark tunnels. Larger battle robots, flying or grounded, follow Sonic and let loose a constant barrage of all sorts of projectiles as well as attacking with mounted blades or ramming shields. They get in his way, but none of their attacks do any damage to him. A few hits dispatches each.

.

Either way, Sonic eventually finds himself back inside a building. He runs down a narrow corridor sparsely lit by small electric lamps, sharply, spontaneously turning. The many metal forms cast large angled shadows across the walls and floor. At some moment, Sonic feels a warm pressure overtake his head and he feels sleepy. Just as his eyes droop for a split second, he hears, "Sonic" and in the corner of his eye sees a face appear in the shadow, staring at him with an eerie toothy smile and... no eyes? Seeing this bizarre image so suddenly, he rapidly turns his head with wide eyes, only to see a blank, opaque, dark steel wall. Assuming the person escaped his sight, he turns further and looks down the path he just ran to the far corner, but there is no one. Sonic figures that the speed to reach that corner in those few seconds, no, the acceleration from a dead stop (when it stared at him) to that speed, would rival if not exceed his own. It seems impossible. Yet, he most definitely saw that person, and even heard him call his name. Maybe it was that fast...

"Robotnik... he's messing with me again. This is really low-level, though..."

So Sonic ignores it and continues down the corridor, which also rises and falls, twists and turns. But not long after he feels the same sleepiness and for a moment hears, "the signs are calling" and easily agrees with the sentiment. He stops immediately. He whips his head around and frantically looks for a person. He looks the other way. No one. "That is definitely something! He must have speakers beneath the walls... it's some kind of technology. Yeah, that explains it, it's some science I don't understand." Having determined the issue, Sonic runs on, forgetting what he heard.

.

At the end of the corridor, Sonic enters a sequence of wide, flat rooms each with a different death trap. The first is naturally a sinking ceiling, but it cannot crush him. The next is filled with a bed of spikes that yet cannot pierce him or even crush him against the ceiling. He runs across lava, through white electric arcs, and through fields of normal, sap, slow and shock energy, completely unaffected in his Ultra form. Then he reaches the final room, which has a single, normal-looking turret mounted above the door out. It begins firing at him, but the projectiles are completely new. They are shimmering spheres of pitch black, which seem to darken the light immediately around them. If Sonic is hit, he is stunned, literally, and loses rings in the tens. If he avoids it, he notices the spheres simply phase through the solid floor or wall. Still, the turret's rate of fire is rather slow and Sonic easily avoids them and spindashes down the door.

He emerges again into the 'outside', but notices at once that many of the tubes and conduits, if not all of them, are radiating from a single source to nearly every other structure. He flies through the spaces, following these tubes, often needing to move perpendicular to their direction to get past the large planes in his way, although at times he can break through thin walls and gates to take a more direct approach. Of course, he can run, jump and wall-jump across the surfaces, but flying accomplishes the same displacement with less movement. This time, besides a few enemies or defense doors or turrets, he is largely unopposed. In due time, the 'roads' expand widely and he sees the source.

It is an immensely large structure and a very complicated one at that, consisting of forms within forms and against forms, at once dissonant and incomprehensible and yet harmonious and easily understood as the junction of two hyperboloids. The many tubes and conduits fuse together in a network of branches out from the perimeter of its central circle. Lights underneath the many triangular planes of its surface give off patterns of moving, intermingling gradients. Combined with the pulsations of the branches it seems like some sort of supernatural superorganism.

Following the branches, Sonic comes to its outside shell and finds that the lines demarcating the triangular planes are actually rather wide chasms, their insides even more detailed and lively. Avoiding the many pylons connecting the different triangular prisms, he enters a very large and darker internal space disturbed only by large tree-like tubes which take branches from the various prisms and combine them into singular trunks that connect directly onto a very wide, smooth convex surface ahead. It curves away from Sonic in every direction, but vertically at a tighter angle. This doesn't mean much relative to Sonic, as the width of the entire structure makes it about half the size of the Death Egg. Thousands of spotlights shine on the tens of thousands of smaller steel manifolds that emerge from it. He approaches it.

.

Yet just as he comes within range of the very complex structures, something detects him and in an instant klaxons and spinning alarm lights radiate from that initial position and quickly envelop the entire surface. There is a steady wide circles of bright white light from above and the chaos of the mixing triangles of spinning hues and darkness.

He is then very suddenly assaulted by turrets that pop out of almost every space, as well as flying, track-mounted and ground-based moving robots. While their weapons have very varied media, such as rockets, single beams, multiple pulse shots and so on, uniformly all of the energies are the black energy type he encountered not too long ago which could deal significant damage to him. At once, the assumption of invincibility and safety is completely annihilated and Sonic must now return to very careful evasion as well as counter-attacks in order to survive.

Yet Sonic's speed makes the ordeal disappear relatively quickly. He moves over the top of the curve and finds that he is on the top of an exceptionally tremendous torus within the very center of the hyperboloid. He sees that situated even more in the center is a simple sphere suspended between three pairs of two opposite-facing cones, with the largest being above and below it. Emerging from all of their bases are twisted triangular prisms with no faces; its corners being pylons that make triple helices. The helices facing the torus naturally connect to its inner perimeter. Seeing this inner perimeter, he notices a rather large gap revealing a very bright interior with an even brighter mass revolving within at extremely high speeds. Looking again to the bridges he notices that there seems to be a dim movement of light out from the sphere. Naturally, Sonic concludes that the source of this black energy must be within it, and decides to destroy it before continuing. He looks at the vertical cones, observing the triple helix that goes vertically both ways has metal faces unlike the others. He figures he'll leave through there.

As he flies down the pylons that connect the torus and sphere, he is still continuously hounded down by flying robots while the ground robots take their final shots at him. However, attached to track-mounted trollies on the pylons themselves are even more turrets, which follow him and attempt to shoot him down. In addition, he also comes across a few of the large flying machines he faced earlier, now equipped with the black energy cannons.

Like the torus, the sphere is completely smooth. The only way of entry is within the pylons which connect them. The moving turrets still follow and shoot at him, and in such a closed space he has to be even more careful. The space gradually narrows in until Sonic finally enters the proper interior. Inside, black condensate coats both the ceiling and floor. The tunnels within move continuously, straight or curved, but also discontinuously in steps or sudden sharp turns. In addition, some of the ceilings and floors push together. Sonic won't immediately be crushed if he gets stuck, but he will very quickly lose all his rings and transform to normal form. Of course, he is also bombarded by turrets and a few flying robots (most that try to follow him end up destroying themselves in the goo). Very seldom are platforms floating alone which Sonic can use to rest.

.

Sonic lands on one. He feels sleepy again, much sleepier than before. His eyes sink deeply but he shakes his head. He notices that he feels heavy, but more than that, things are strange. He looks around, and it's the same, but yet, it's different. He tries to rest for a moment by kneeling but it doesn't give him relief. He moves his other leg and sits, but again he feels tense. It bothers him. He feels warm. A surge of pressure comes over his head. "Where am I? What is this place?!" Sonic tries to say, but finds his mouth not making the movement. "Why can't I talk?" Sonic thinks. He looks around. He sees transparent creatures crawling on the platform, stopping, then moving elsewhere. He looks at them, fascinated. They disappear at the edge and he looks into the glowing darkness covering the walls. He sees red pupil-less eyes staring back at him, and he turns away in fear. "What the hell was that..." Sonic thinks, and looks at the metal texture. The sequential bumps in front of him smoothly slide as if on a line. He watches this with great interest, but soon they stop moving. He feels lighter. He stands up and looks back into the darkness. There's nothing there.

Sonic grabs his head. "Okay, so I'm hallucinating again. Then those other times... they weren't real. This is all Robotnik. He's doing whatever he can to stop me... this is a good sign... I can get through it. I have before. I just need to keep on going..."

.

Sonic keeps on going. Flying through the tunnels, in short time he comes to the very center of the massive manufacturing plant. The spherical walls have a grid of linear lights making the large room rather bright. There are hundreds of containers of Black Stones with tubes connecting to many separate machines that in turn have tubes connecting to hundreds of containers of the black stuff. There is an Archimedian spherical spiral catwalk with both poles being a ring around a large vertical tube in the absolute center. All of the machinery, constantly moving in production, is contained within that ball around the tube.

Waiting for Sonic on the catwalk is none other than the Egg Assassin. Like before, he can either fight him or avoid him. Now that he stands a chance, the battle can be described in detail.

.

[Egg Assassin]

As mentioned earlier, it tries to predict where Sonic will go, and aim its beam that can pierce through all surfaces and harm Sonic. Even when firing, it tries to intercept Sonic. Unable to pin Sonic down in Ultra form, it instead makes slices with its blade at a very fast rate. They are still evadable even up close, and so Sonic can enter fighting mode to deal counters while he has the chance.

Its beam can also fire in different modes besides single beam, that is: rapid-fire pulse, expanding spray (like a flamethrower), and a charged-up shot which makes a wide, powerful explosion. It also can fire missiles of several types:

- "dumb" type

- rapidly fired, always directly aiming at Sonic

- about thirty sprayed around Sonic

- "smart" type (homing)

- fired in regular intervals

- "spawn" type (explode out ten smaller missiles in a circle)

- fired alone

- fired in conjunction with "dumb" type

- "flash" type (very large explosion radius which lasts longer)

- fired alone

- fired in conjunction with "dumb" type

- super missiles (create large explosions that often send off separate fireballs)

- fired alone

- fired in conjunction with "smart" type

Egg Assassin attacks Sonic with great intensity, attempting to corner him with his attacks. It only backs off when it's hit about 5 times. It attacks with long-distance while it recovers within an energy barrier. This shouldn't deter Sonic, as if he can chase him down and hit him, he'll deal two hits of damage instead of one. If it can't escape, it'll attempt to take the initiative in attacking.

It takes 60 hits to defeat it, and around the final 10 hits it only tries to recover. Once defeated, it sends all of its remaining energy into its thrusters and propels itself with a final burst to escape.

.

Sonic can stop the black condensate manufacturing while he's here by breaking through one of the many tubes and following it within the machine. It's a very narrow space inside with almost no room between the walls of black stuff. He must move through rapidly moving pistons and destroy several internal supports and electronics via spindash before escaping out the other end as it fills up with the deadly stuff.

Whether he tries to avoid Egg Assassin or has defeated it, and whether he has destroyed the machine or not, Sonic can simply fly upwards to follow the central tube up and out of the structure. The way down is blocked by a thick, solid floor, strangely enough.

Following the tube upwards, Sonic must first leave the sphere. The cylinder of space around the tube is often interrupted by walls with only a few if not just one small opening to pass through, if the openings aren't blocked by a breakable gate of some sort. Constantly moving so he can keep on constantly moving, this area is quickly navigated and Sonic emerges outside the sphere into the wide space he was in not too long ago. Briefly he flies (or runs on the tube's surface). If he destroyed the machine, he does so alone, but otherwise he is again bombarded by flying enemies galore before he enters the cone.

The space between the cone and tube is much more narrow, and filled with pylons that are at any angle parallel to the cylindrical space or at an angle to that, too, making a very complicated path to navigate. It may become so complicated that Sonic might take a detour into the thin tunnels that curve around the main one. Leaving this, Sonic then finds himself within the triple helix, which is much larger up close than what he saw earlier.

There are many small, thin structures within this helix generally at approximately parallel angles to the tube. Many of them and blotches on the surface of the tube itself are often covered in the black condensate for some reason. Sonic can attempt to fly in between them but he may find it slightly easier to run up the safe surfaces and jump/wall-jump to the next when these hazards quickly appear before him. It doesn't need to be said that the product of his current speed and the amount and density of these hazards necessitates a very quick reaction time. He cannot rely merely on instinct, however, as there is not always an easy pattern of when or how to jump, and at times Sonic may even need to return to flying to make it through unhurt.

As he makes his way up through the lateral center and up the narrowing curves of the greater hyperboloid structure, he faces a steady stream of enemies and moving turrets that attempt to impede his progress. Even if the manufacturing machine was destroyed, the flying robots will try to suicidally block his immediate path while the turrets try to obscure his view. In addition, in areas where the surface of the tube is clean, he may find himself surrounded by turrets moving on the tube itself (and not just the helical pylons).

.

It takes longer than the time he took from the exterior prisms to the most interior spherical space, but eventually Sonic manages to escape the structure. To his great surprise, he finds himself outside not just the hyperboloid but the 'city', as well! It is not a pleasant one, however, as he could only tell by the dark, sooty sky created by thousands of rising columns of smoke that blot out the sun. And yet the landscape all around him is absurdly bright due to an exceeding amount of lamps shining in every direction from almost everywhere. The landscape is clearly visible and yet bears little difference from the city he just escaped, except that it is relatively much flatter up here. Looking up, he sees massive floating structures in the sky, of such abstract and complex shapes that it almost seemed as if the world was virtually created and its graphics glitched inconceivable forms. The ground, however, is mostly flat save for giant smokestacks and a few towers and walls. The pipe he had been following finally changes direction in a right angle and enters an even larger pipe which zig zags across the artificial world. Sonic is somehow unsurprised to find that his pipe is one of a myriad, and presumably this means that destroying that one manufacturing plant is of little, if any, consequence.

.

Yet at this scale, with Mobius already this far from what it once was, especially being so far after so short of a time, Sonic did not really expect any different. In a way that Sonic recognized as somewhat disturbing, he enjoyed the challenge of having to face such an immense scale. It fits the godlike powers he is mastering. There was nothing left. Nobody left. Just him and Robotnik. Their battle had absorbed everything, leaving nothing but their separate wills, their separate powers. Maybe it's because of everything I've been through, Sonic thinks, that I find that this was going to happen, that our simple battle would grow to such proportions, and even further, too, definitely...

He scans the horizon, perhaps the only thing that stayed the same, looking for his next destination. It appears to him almost instantly, another massive megastructure sitting like a single mountain atop the world, nearly breaching the cover of smoke above. Just as he notices it, however, his eyes are drawn to the flat land and the open space between him and it. It is filled, absolutely flooded with robots and the roboticized, bombers, jets, tanks and trucks. He couldn't even begin counting, but he knew it was an army of hundreds of thousands of autonomous machines all moving towards him with the single intent of killing him once and for all. And Sonic knew that this was no desperate all-or-nothing blitz, it was just a simple attack perhaps not even with any strategic purpose. But that didn't bother Sonic. In truth, he was expecting it all along. It was a long time, but he made a small smile, acknowledging the truth of the moment. And he ran towards the onslaught, his smile already gone.

.

In less than a minute, bombs are dropped all around him and the fighters swoop in, trying to mow him down with black energy bullets. Soon after, the motorized robots, trucks and bikes roar in, letting loose walls of projectiles at Sonic. Right after that, he is met by the infantry, of every robot he's met before and many he hasn't, mixed together with roboticized New and Old Mobians attacking him with their respective weapons. Most of them don't have black energy and end up being destroyed one after another as Sonic charges through. He breaks through the tanks and the Old Mobians' deadly war machines with ease. The waves of foes keeps on coming, but Sonic quickly gets used to it. He leaves a path of fire and smoke behind him.

In really no time at all, he finds himself directly in front of the new megastructure, its great heights and size obscured by its own surface. Without spending time to observe it, Sonic focuses ahead on the large entrance from which the enemies continuously spawn. He tears through them, one by one by one, and enters. Within is an immense room with open elevators rising or lowering to the ground floor all around him, each carrying some new foe that directly attacks him. He sees a narrow hallway and enters it, finding himself in a bridge going through an even larger space, separated in many levels of flat floors filled with roboticizing capsules. All of them are inactive.

The bridge connects to a sequence of smooth catwalks that curve and spin and suddenly turn around in every direction as is typical, sometimes covered with the black condensate. Rushing at him from the other direction in a never-ending stream are the robots, unfazed by his progress or momentum. In the background are ships Sonic recognizes as from the Egg Tempest, but as he continues on he finds Egg Suits, rockets of all sizes as big as the Flying Fury and even bigger, and many other vehicles and inactive robots of large size. These storage areas are almost directly connected to humongous masses of machinery that extend to the very edges of the room seemingly halfway to the horizon, producing and assembling the millions of parts for all of the designs.

As he goes deeper into the factory, the rooms only get larger and larger, and so too the things they produce. He sees multiple Egg Colossi, gigantic ships and weapons. Even deeper into the earth, he comes to an absolutely tremendous room of baffling size, its extreme volume almost completely filled by the construction of what seems to be a _new_ Death Egg. Yet at his top speed, Sonic leaves this room rather quickly.

.

The next room is atomic in size relative to the last one, being a cube whose bottom is centered on a straight line following from the catwalk. It's much darker, with slow-moving machines rhythmically pumping and pulsing on. The next room is just the same, and so is the next, and the one after that, and so on. There are no enemies here, and none chase him.

As the rooms repeat over and over, Sonic again feels a heaviness come over him. "It's going to happen again," Sonic thinks. It's much stronger than before, so much so that he stumbles over his own feet. "No... whatever happens, it's not real... I can keep on going." And then the feeling disappears.

Sonic runs through the sequence of rooms, with later rooms being organized on the other axis as well. Each room being identical to the last, no matter where he goes, he turns at random. "Another trick," Sonic thinks, "Where am I going? This room is new. I'll turn here... It's the same! Whoa, that's moving..." And he stops to look at the machine in the corner, the same as many machine in any corner. He looks into the deep shadows of the designed shapes, seeing shapes in the shadows, the fuzzy outlines like spindly legs. And looking at these legs, he sees them move, and they crawl out with small bodies, hundreds of spiders crawl out from each shadow. They move up and down and across the surfaces and then on the walls and floor, towards Sonic, who looks at them in awe. "So many..."

His entire vision flashes. He is surprised, looks around. He notices floating in the air many strings, not really moving, just being there. He looks through a doorway and through the doorway of the next room, into the building shadows, and sees at the end a man enveloped in darkness with bright red eyes. As he stares at this man staring at him maybe 10, 20 rooms away, he starts to hear a strange melody made from some kind of synthesizer. He hears a chaotic, slow beat, with each hit reverberating with immense gravity. It isn't music, it isn't noise, and it just absorbs Sonic. He then turns and sees a tall man of shadow standing high above him, and he looks up at his steady red eyes that did not blink or turn away, staring at him, through him, and Sonic feels like invisible claws are coming over him, in the corner of his eyes he sees them, hands grabbing at him, clawing at him, and he even feels sharp blades starting to slice the sides of his arms and legs and chest and he quickly looks at them in horrible anticipation, only to see his bare skin unmarked. He looks up again and sees the machine as a strange creature, breathing and dancing, and its mouth opens and closes and Sonic hears it talk.

"The understanding could not be considered, that any of it is said, to be said, is filtering the unsaid," it says.

Sonic is driven to respond, "You're right. That makes sense. It's not like people, always open, not fast enough, can't it?"

"It doesn't, importantly not carrying innumerable complications, don't take it, don't take it, don't take it Sonic, don't take it. Don't take it, _Sonic_, don't take it! _Sonic. Sonic!_ Don't take it..."

"I won't!" Sonic interjects, suddenly scared by its change in tone. "I won't do it, I'm not."

The machine-person doesn't talk anymore, and instead it moves its strange arms towards Sonic at a fast speed. Thinking it's attacking him, Sonic turns and runs into the room the other way. Just as he enters it, he sees the machine again, and it attacks him again! Forgetting he just saw it happen, he runs in another room again, and again sees it, and runs again. He does this many times, but soon also sees more shadow people lining the walls of the rooms, and the music starts pounding in his skull, the melody spinning into something horrible and violent, and as he turns his head each time to run in a new direction, his eyes scan faces, staring, screaming, in the walls and the floor, and eventually he just closes his eyes and runs, and he hears many voices speaking, shouting at him, and the music tangles with them and his vision still flashes with brightness, and he feels things slide and hit and crawl and slice his skin.

He opens his eyes. He's in a small, simple bedroom, and Tails is sitting on the bed looking at him. Sonic is somehow not surprised. "Hey Tails. What's up?" Tails seems somewhat indifferent. "Not much, just hangin' around." "Cool. I'm alright, pretty tired. Feel heavy. Weird." "That's weird," Tails comments. "Yeah. I don't know. Hey, what do you think of the echidnas?" "Their architecture is strong and spiritual," Tails says, looking up, putting his hand against his chin. "Very interesting. A kind of floaty, sturdy, smooth but not always. So many types. Black Shards. Why locks?" He stops talking, seemingly caught up in thought. "Well, it must be since some can glide. Like Knuckles. Wonder how he feels. He..." Sonic thinks, "Why does Knuckles value his duty so much?" and finds it a significant pondering, and tries to say it to Tails. But, as soon as he tries, he wonders, "Wait... what did I think? It was important... Shit... I don't remember... why don't I remember it? I just... I just thought it!" And he looks at Tails, whose hand was at his side again, but he was looking down. "Tails, I-" Sonic starts, only to see Tails' head sinking slowly lower and lower, until his eyes are obscured by his brow, and Sonic suddenly realizes that something isn't right, that he fought Tails the last time they met. And then Sonic instantly understood, that he has been hallucinating. Yet Tails is right here... and so Sonic goes to touch Tails, just to see if he's real, and he figures Tails will find it weird, and he pokes his head...

Sonic is staring at the floor. He looks up and finds himself lying on the ground of the machine room. There's only the next room in front of him, nothing to the sides, and the one behind him. Sonic is very disturbed. "No... that... it was all a hallucination... **all** of it. I... what's happening to me? What the fuck... what is happening to me..." He stands and just runs ahead, down the path. He runs through room after room and eventually comes to a shut door at the end. He spin dashes through it and enters another massive space, so massive he can't even see any of the walls or the ceiling or floor. The entire space is taken up by the Eraser Egg, with the catwalk leading from the doorway to its vast side. He runs down it and then across the surface of the gargantuan battleship, but he stops. He is about to think.

Sonic is staring at the floor. He looks up and finds himself in the same machine room again. The exact same one. "I'm losing it... I'm going crazy! What's real?! How much of this is real?! Damn it... damn it! This is Robotnik's doing... I can't, I can't let him win!" He nearly cries from the frustration, and even shouts out, but he can't. His voice seems unable to leave his mouth. Just as he is aware of this, he feels light, so light, that his eyes start to open.

His eyes open to complete darkness. He feels cold cement touching his limbs, body and face. "Is it over?" Sonic asks. He pushes himself onto his knees and then stands. "Where am I?" he thinks, and turns around, to suddenly jump by seeing two bright red disc-like eyes with large pupils staring at him from a few arms' lengths away. As he looks at the eyes, they approach him, bobbing up and down to the sound of muffled pressurized air. Sonic backs away, but it continues towards him. The light from its eyes shines on a needle-like nose protruding from a shiny and smooth metal surface.

Sonic instantly recognized the face, as if it was his own. He stops, and it walks right up to his face. "This isn't Silver Sonic, or Mecha Sonic. I've never seen this one before...!" Sonic thinks. The robot lifts a metal fist right next to Sonic's chest and keeps it still. Sonic, suddenly realizing its motive, pulls up his hands as quick as he possibly can, just before the fist is launched into them at a mind-baffling speed. The force pushes Sonic back with such ferocity that he slides against the ground for hundreds of feet, only to suddenly feel his own feet lose grip and nearly fly into the air. The tightness of the punch is so sharp that Sonic feels a stabbing pain in his chest despite his hands blocking it in the air.

Before Sonic can take a single breath, he's attacked again.

[Act 2 Boss: METAL SONIC]

Metal Sonic has all of the same moves as Sonic, those being:

- spin attack (jump),

- spin charge (stationary),

- spin dash,

- wall jump,

- as well as flying,

- mid-air dash

- and even air shield.

It can fight in close combat, with four levels of punch strength which are thrown at the limit of Sonic's perception of speed. That said, it is just as fast as Ultra Sonic and occasionally faster when bursting in speed. It starts out with little strategy besides constantly attacking and avoiding Sonic's attacks until it starts learning how Sonic responds to him and uses that knowledge to its advantage.

After a set period of time, Metal Sonic suddenly doubles his speed and dashes around with explosions of color that light up a lot of the space (although nowhere near all of it). It moves faster and faster until it makes a stage of loops, quartercircles, slopes, curves and chutes and then moves on it, still faster than Sonic, attacking him as it passes by. It learns how Sonic moves through the stage and adjusts his movements (and thus the stage) accordingly to make it easier to attack him.

.

After 16 hits, Metal Sonic backs away while his body glows. It tucks in its arms and legs and then throws them outward like it's imitating Sonic's transformation, however the energy it contains explodes outwards. Just as it does this, lights flick on in the distance one after another, revealing a massive grid of alcoves each with their own stasis pod. Following the first wave of light, a second wave of signals and status beacons pop on in each alcove. Bars and gears push and turn while the hissing sound of depressurization fills the immense space. The door on each pod flips open and robots step out en masse. In the now bright light Sonic easily sees an army of Silver Sonics of the two types he's encountered before (_in Sonic 2 and Sonic & Knuckles_) as well as many new types. After a brief moment of motionlessness, they all immediately turn their heads at Sonic and then dash towards him.

None are as fast as Metal Sonic, which observes from a distance as the hundreds of Silvers attack Sonic at once, although it occasionally enters the fray to drop an attack or several. While at first the Silvers attack one by one, they then attack together, although in a disorganized fashion. But they quickly learn and organize. They attack in multiple flanks consisting of several waves to overwhelm Sonic on all sides, even though all of their attacks are useless against Ultra Sonic's invulnerability.

Soon they realize how to beat this, however, and organize the shape of their collective volume around Metal Sonic. As the organic Sonic attempts to break through their numbers, a large chunk of the Silvers take up the shape of a ball and simultaneously spin dash at Sonic. Ultra Sonic can actually get hurt by this unless he spin dashes himself, whereas he smashes the ball into its fragments of harmed Silvers. As Sonic approaches Metal, more of these Super spin balls are sent towards Sonic at increasing speeds, some trying to surprise him by "jumping" into the air and crashing down on him like the original Silver _(in Sonic 1)_. It is made clear that Metal is the commander from the way the Silvers sacrifice themselves to protect it. Eventually, when Sonic gets close enough, Metal attacks on his own again. However, he doesn't let up with his army of lesser robots, who attack Sonic all at once, wave after wave.

.

After another 16 hits, a familiar big, detailed circle of light emerges from behind Metal. It turns its head , recognizing it, it then glows with energy again and stops moving away from Sonic. The light in the room dims significantly as it does this, and all of the Silvers stop attacking to instead form a boundary around Sonic. Most of the light around Sonic now come from the thousands of their lit eyes and the glow of Metal. Metal attacks immediately with a speed so high that the light around him seems unable to catch up, forming blurry but quick tracers, which Sonic can only dodge in an instant and no later.

It attacks ten times per second in bursts, and mixes up its own attacks, which are:

- "firing" Silvers in spin balls at Sonic at different angles and at high speeds like bullets,

- and forming "arms" or various shapes out of Silvers to best trap Sonic.

- One unique shape is a simple sphere created a distance away from Sonic, which then explodes from an energy burst from Metal Sonic who dashed into the center too fast to be seen.

Sonic can usually only attack Metal in a parry, but as Metal does not escape the confines of the Silver Sonic-made arena, it is possible for Sonic to corner it. However, Metal then resorts to close-combat fighting and Sonic's moves must border on perfect to brave Metal's much superior speed. Either way, only another 8 hits is all it takes for Metal to lose its power.

.

All of the Silvers suddenly deactivate, the light of their eyes extinguished, and they all collapse to the floor. Metal, unable to keep itself floating, also drops but manages to catch itself before slamming down. Sonic, without a moment's hesitation, dashes towards the Second Gate. Just as he does, portions of the ceiling, walls and floor explode. Huge chunks of debris are sent flying and colliding against each other all around Sonic and the room immediately starts caving in. Even the Gate flickers and distorts. Sonic makes very sharp turns to avoid slowing down, which is rather difficult given the speed of destruction. By consequence, it seems, time quickly slows down, but as he closes on the gate, a large platform from above falls before it, somehow parallel to the floor.

Metal Sonic kneels on one knee looking down, and standing next to it is a Silver Sonic that looks directly at Sonic. It holds out its hand at what Sonic perceives as normal speed, which naturally surprises him as everything else moves slow enough to seem almost still. He ignores it, knowing it is just a distraction, when suddenly filling Sonic's vision, on each "floating" piece of debris from the building, are single Silver Sonics, some of which are clinging on despite being destroyed even to just one gripping arm. Sonic stops there, looking around wildly, wondering if he's hallucinating, when other pieces of debris move down towards each of the Silvers, all at the same height and speed. The situation is uncanny. Sonic looks back to the Silver, with its hand held out.

Sonic is suddenly struck with the realization that this Silver is the same one he saved, but just as he thinks that, he consequently realizes this is also the same one that started the spread of the roboticizing goo across Mobius. And upon thinking that, he realized this Silver couldn't possibly be that one, which destroyed itself.

And just as he thought that, his brief feeling of empathy extinguished by logic, Metal looks up at him with a gaze that pierces time. In an instant, the debris crash into each other at normal speed and all of the other Silvers are crushed into pieces. Sonic, markedly disturbed and surprised, who turned his head to see it happen, looks back at Metal only to find the Silver in front of him reduced to its internal skeleton and circuits, with many chunks of its inner structure removed. It collapses in front of him very slowly, while the debris falls around very fast. Metal does not move at all, and Sonic looks at Metal's eyes in anticipation of possible death. Metal stared back with endless intensity and no emotion. Sonic then feels his skin start to tear and slip off his body when...

Sonic's memory snaps back to the real present as he jumps into the Gate which was being disconnected at that very moment. The inner circles of the frame sequentially push forward, following Sonic until he passes the final loop a quarter second later. As he does, his head and body are dunked with heavy weight.

.

[Act 3]

Sonic finds himself in a strange landscape of highly irregular form, resembling no distinct shape nor organization. It consists only of very small modules themselves consisting of flat planes and sharp corners, which build on each other almost randomly. Thus all of the surface around Sonic is extremely complex to the point of chaos, with the space between changing from small to large with hardly any indication of continuity.

However, Sonic himself doesn't analyze his surroundings, instead focusing on the change in his psychological state that he's perceiving. Recognizing the weight, he soon finds the edges of his vision filled with movement (_likewise, the edges of the screen are made to constantly and erratically move, which limits the reaction time of the player even more_) and his hearing filled with random sounds and voices, mostly speaking gibberish but sometimes saying his name or other words. Sonic doesn't let it get to him this time, knowing he's hallucinating, he decides to simply continue on.

So he does, navigating these hyper-mechanical caverns, having to squeeze through holes or even break through some barriers while almost always changing his direction. After only a short stint in those narrow corridors, one of them opens up into a very massive space. Like the area before, it consists of large chunks of "structures", but now everything consists of that same material. In addition, he now finds that many of them are constantly changing shape, and some even have tendrils of goo which add or subtract masses. Almost all of the tiny modules have even tinier lights, but in conjunction to this degree, visibly form a network superstructure, changing hue and value in subsequently greater waves of information, yet being at every level "noise". In the edges of Sonic's vision, however, the "noise" is greatly simplified to the point of forming faces and other simple, recognizable shapes, almost all of which seem to be not only alive, but sentient, and not only sentient, but aggressive.

There are no recognizable landmarks besides a remarkable sense of scale and space, and definitely no sense of orientation in this place, wherever it is. Sonic can do nothing but move ahead, but soon enough he has no choice. The shapeshifting environment soon becomes aware of his presence and immediately changes its shape all around Sonic to confuse him and make him go in loops. In addition, Sonic may notice Black Energy being rapidly transported from distance spaces towards his current or predicted locations. Once proximate, the Energy is secreted from every module on each surface, and the environment then attempts to trap, crush, impale, shoot or otherwise harm Sonic using its weapon.

It isn't long after that when he is suddenly onslaughted by Egg Robos. Actually, the environment, which really is the most advanced form of Nanoegg structure yet, holds off from certain movements in order to not harm its allies. However, it certainly continues to assist in the fight, providing caches of Black Energy for the Egg Robos to fuel all of their weapons, as well as barriers behind which they can hide and those to slow if not trap Sonic completely, and of course turrets to overwhelm Sonic at almost all times.

.

Only here does Sonic face Egg Robos again, and it's all of the types of Egg Robos he has met, as well as those he has never seen before, which shall be listed here:

- Egg Robo (normal): 2 hits, double damage if hit from behind on the jet-pack

- can fly, attacks from a distance

- fires pairs of pulses from two handheld guns

- punching up-close

- slow, smart missiles

- Egg Armor-Robo: 4 hits

- slow, cannot fly

- larger pulses

- punches are also long-distance, drawn back by chains

- 10 quick homing missiles, 3½s detonation time

- Egg Speed-Robo: 1 hit

- 1.5x Sonic's normal form's speed

- 1 slow dumb with large explosion

- rapid-fire pulses

- more powerful, but half the range

- Egg Tank-Robo: 9 hits

- large, arms and legs fold over into a large shell

- Its hands hold two large, rotatable cannons

- 5 second charge then fires both cannons rapidly and in alternation, 10 times. Sonic can jump or roll.

- One cannon can lock-on and shoot at Sonic at a time, 10 times.

- can hover into the air, to then crush Sonic (jetpack is only weakness)

- Egg Gunman-Robo: 1 hit

- has lock-on, fires rapid bursts of bullets

- grenades

- if Sonic is close, they back away but keep their fire.

- Egg Rocket-Robo: 4 hits

- slowly loads a rocket in its bazooka and then fires it in a straight line (explosion sends Black Condensate everywhere)

- fires many fast, tiny missiles from its backpack.

- if Sonic is close, they use a pistol and fire a powerful shot aimed at Sonic every 3s.

- Egg Commando-Robo: 8 hits

- Moves in the shadows only

- Occasionally aims at Sonic with a rifle from afar, the laser dot opposite his position (which is typically moving)

- Is equipped with automatic rifle, dual pistols, proximity and remote grenades, and a knife.

- May either command a platoon of the randomly selected Egg Robo types:

- normal

- A

- G

- R

- Or be part of a team with other C and S types.

- It can fight in close combat. Its attacks are heavy but now even slower, but it usually sticks with guns.

- Egg Killer-Robo: 8 hits

- A slim Egg Robo with arm-mounted blades.

- Its fast speed is still slow relative to Sonic, but faster than most Egg Robos.

- wide crescent slash projectile of Black Energy

- Also has remote and proximity grenades

- can send out its blades on a yo-yo like weapon

- Egg Bomb-Robo: 1 hit (it doesn't explode when hit)

- runs in and throws tens of bombs into the air which then explode off each other

- launches its jetpack towards Sonic as a high-speed missile

- leaps towards Sonic while spinning and/or doing a pose before suddenly rotating and opening into a large explosion

- Egg Laser-Robo: 3 hits

- has two laser guns which fire two moveable long streams of directed Black Energy (hurts him even faster than normal Black Energy)

- Putting both guns together and charging them for a large, rapidly moving ball of Black Energy which makes a huge explosion upon contact of a surface

- shoots sticky mirrors at the vertices of a polygon it "draws" and then fires a laser from one gun into the other. He is motionless then until Sonic comes close to him.

- Egg Robo-Robo: 16 hits

- A large Egg Robo, only seen in larger spaces. It looks similar to the Death Egg Robot _(in Sonic 2)_.

- It is unarmed, but its fists and kicks are very powerful and charged with Black Energy

- It can try to grab Sonic, and if it does, it crushes him with Black Energy, possibly to the point where he transforms to normal

- Jetpack is replaced with a large Egg Robo creator.

- Its eyes have energy cannons within them, but the bare head is vulnerable. After a hit, it goes to grab Sonic.

- Egg Pressure-Robo: 1 hit, uncommon type

- An Egg Robo tries to stay the same distance from Sonic at all times.

- It increases the range of the hallucinations from peripheral to focus (adds on top of other P-Robos, decreases with every P-Robo destruction).

- Egg Question-Robo: 1 hit, uncommon type

- Blue, small, has a speaker for a head, no arms/legs. Floats through the act at random

- If Sonic is close, it comes towards him, asks a question, and then leaves. These are the questions:

- "How do you know what is real?"

- "Why do you never stop fighting?"

- "Are you happy?"

- "Where are your friends?"

- "Why do some people want to be roboticized?"

- "How do you know you're not wrong?"

- "Why do you think that you are still alive?"

- Egg, The Robo: 1 hit, uncommon type

- It's a smaller Egg-Robo without arms, legs or a head.

- It sucks up all of the Power Rings Sonic has except for 1.

- Egg Velocity-Robo: 2 hits, uncommon type

- Indigo, triangular, flies through the air, shoots small horizontal strips that cause other Egg Robos to dash forward

- Increases the speed of all Egg Robos.

- Egg Negative-Robo: 1 hit, rare type

- a purely white Egg Robo with no weapons that stays behind groups of other Egg Robos.

- if Sonic attacks any enemy but the Egg Negative-Robo, he receives damage; but if he receives an attack, the enemy is damaged instead.

- Egg Death-Robo: intangible, rare type

- A dark shadow that appears in Sonic's (_the player_)'s peripheral vision. It approaches very slowly to one side, and waits until Sonic is close enough. If he touches it, it will kill him even in Ultra form. It vanishes after a short while.

In addition, Sonic has to fight Nanoegg Robos. They are made of the same material as the environment, although in the much stabler form of an Egg Robo. They move at Sonic's speed and fire multiple Black Energy beams at once. Their fighting is also very fast, although relatively slow compared to Metal Sonic, of course with fists charged with Black Energy. They can change shape into any of the above Egg Robos and are even faster and more powerful, with the exception of types P, Q, V, N and D. Types T and Robo require 5 and 10 Nanoegg Robos to be together before they morph into one.

Sonic's delirium does not just lie on the corner of his mind. Every now and then, almost randomly, it spikes in intensity. Every Egg Robo moves with a horrifying frigidity and intensity and the environment seems to have sentient, prehensile interior walls like it is some malevolent superorganism. All sound is a combined into a gargantuan roar of a grating metal monster. On every surface of every thing around him, textures move extremely rapidly out of place before whipping back, as if twitching. Sonic may be especially hurt by an attack out of his immediate vision, as his memory of enemy positions around him is forgotten when seconds (_the player sees enemies gliding around and returning to previous positions in a very surreal way_). The delirium may seem to stop, only for Sonic to find himself back where he was minutes ago, and this may happen several times each time his delirium spikes. After a while, it does calm down temporarily.

Sonic eventually comes to an area where he is left alone. Hovering before him is Egg Assassin.

.

[Act 3 Boss: EGG ASSASSIN]

Egg Assassin is exactly the same as when Sonic faced it earlier. However, if it was defeated then, its attacks are less in number and it is defeated in 40 hits rather than 60.

This battle is tougher as the Nanoegg environment changes shape to give Egg Assassin the advantage. Often the surfaces change color and form less chaotic shapes that combine into familiar locations. It happens very rapidly while Sonic's delirium spikes again.

.

Sonic sees his parents. They are standing in the room of his house. They look at him without blinking, without moving. Sonic walks towards them, thinking of nowhere else to go. The fans are rotating over head. They make a whooshing sound. But Sonic can vaguely hear voices in the noise, as if calling out from him far, far away. He hears sentences, they are quiet at first, melancholy almost. They ask where he is. They call out, "Sonic! Sonic..." It's so soft to hear at first. They say, "We _miss you_, Sonic. Wherever you are... we want to see you again..." Sonic says, "Mom? Dad? I'm right here! Why can't you see me?!" Sonic sees his parents right in front of him. The two fans rotating overhead. Sharp blades whirling at an unnerving pace. The walls start disintegrating in the corner of Sonic's vision, but he can only stare at his parents. The bodies of his parents suddenly twitch unrealistically. "Are these actually my parents," Sonic thinks? The walls are torn away at once. Hidden behind every wall was a fan, all of the same size, some overlapping another. Light radiates out from the floor and from the floor only. He looks back to his parents. They're not there, but he can still hear their voices calling out to him. Before he can realize it, he notices that his body seems to be melting into the floor. He tries to tug against it, but his body doesn't respond in any way. He imagines it's because he's dying. He hears his parents screaming his name, calling him names, demanding he appears right now, wanting to hurt him, wanting to abandon him! The Nanoeggs then disassemble the floor and Sonic looks down in horror to find a gigantic fan the size of the Death Egg. Sonic no longer feels himself as anything more than the difference in size between him and the moon-sized fan, and his entire consciousness is nothing more than feeling the pressure from that difference and the extremely fast speed with which it moves its gargantuan fan blades. Even the massive sounds he hears is compressed into that feeling by the movement of the air itself. He felt so very tiny and constrained that the only way he could comprehend it was through the most direct way, fear. Nothing but fear. Why did he deserve this?! Surrounded by blades cutting the air in circular motion, fans that want to kill him, that scream his name, demand him, Sonic, come to them, be shredded to pieces!

.

Egg Assassin attacks him here. Sonic can move out into the greater space beyond the room for a less constricted battlefield if he chooses.

.

Sonic is in the forest at night. He has a flash light in hand. Near him are two of his childhood friends at that same age again. They're walking ahead of him. "C'mon, we'll get out of here," one says. Sonic looks into the great darkness enveloping everything around him, and the trees seemed to quiver and creep towards him, their branches bending around space to slowly impale him. Hidden behind every bush and rock that he could see is a creature made of pure shadow, waiting for him to be unaware to eat him up whole. There are several simple waveforms, square and sine and so on, stuck in the air without changing tone or volume. It almost seems to be the space above, the purest of darkness, from which all shadows originate. "We're out," the other says. Sonic hears silence. They stand in a well-lit but empty district of a local town. The walls and asphalt twitch lightly and occasionally form recognizable shapes, but the shadow creatures are subdued. Sonic walks down the streets, ignoring the people he sees in the corner of his vision who run towards him. He then looks around and realizes his friends are gone, and he is completely alone.

This town is actually a very large area with a lot of space between structures. In addition, Egg Assassin's attacks actually destroy the environment.

Once defeated, Egg Assassin collapses to its knees and almost instantly glows white hot. Sonic has to escape the resulting super-explosion which is of such surprisingly massive force that it rips asunder even the greater Nanoegg structure.

If he manages to fly away from the many shock waves, Sonic will find himself flying in the clear blue sky, high above the clouds. He looks at the Nanoegg structure to see a giant worm-like amoeboid with its lower surface glowing strongly from Black Energy, presumably to keep it afloat. Glancing around him, he sees many of these worms like floating freeways at various levels in the sky.

Looking down, he sees a small island with a tall mountain. A very familiar island, with a verdant coast with many waterfalls and tall flowers, ancient ruins, and a colorful city. Without another thought he drops down to it.

.

**South Island **[Act 1] (9/43)

It's sunny. He lands on the green hills he remembers from so long ago. Everything is the same. Did he stop the Nanoeggs from reaching here? He then notices a figure sitting next to a tree, looking out at the river with two tails wrapped around the trunk. As he walks nearer, the sun glints in his eyes. He holds up his hands and walks out of the way, strafing to the front of the figure. It's Tails.

"You're... roboticized..." Sonic mutters.

Tails stands up. He looks up at Sonic with his large neon blue eyes. "Sonic, I'm so sorry, for thinking it was you... it never was you, Sonic...! It was never any of us!" His voice has the same timbre and stress. He then quickly blasts his rotorized tails and rockets towards Sonic with a super-fast punch.

Sonic avoids Robo-Tails' attacks and counterattacks him.

Tails screams in pain with his true voice.

Sonic turns to see Tails lying on the ground, a deep gash in his robotic body. He can't move. "S-S-So-Sonic, w-w-why li-like th-thi-this..."

Sonic then hears all around him in a distinct, unified voice, "SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNN**NNNNNNNNNNN**_**IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICC CCC**_**!**" that reverberates throughout the entire world, some horrible synthesized voice of millions, billions, trillions of Robotniks!

The mountain on the island suddenly explodes open and a crack, surprisingly straight, rips apart the entire island. Clouds suddenly appear in great number from the exposed geothermal heat, creating the largest storm system on the surface, leaving the rest of the world suddenly thrust into the sunlight, some with an suddenly ominous view of the world in its final throes of total cybernetic infection. Sonic can see the abyss open before him which is as deep as he could possibly see and farther... everything is already roboticized. All that was left of natural Mobius lied in the core and in Sonic.

A massive volume within Mobius changes, which configures its shape briefly before projecting a tower from within it. As the tower approaches, it opens up, revealing a dense structure of different floors and rooms all around a large space in the middle. In there are many blocks locked on each other around something within except for the very top, which has a large sphere with a glass dome. At this point the entire structure is now directly in front of him and on level with his vision. The glass rotates into the sphere, revealing the final space within which has a semi-reflective black floor, flat from side to side of the circle except for the center which is raised slightly. Standing upon it is a wide command console made of constantly changing Nanoeggs and behind it, a cushiony seat with keypads on its armrests. Sitting there, in the middle of all of it, looking back at Sonic, is Dr. Robotnik.

A large portion of the back of his head is roboticized, along with his left eye. He doesn't wear his glasses, instead staring intensely at Sonic with cold, dark eyes and an unmoving face. His mustache is even longer, but the left side has a flatter shape with more sparse whiskers. He wears a simple full-body black suit with two yellow lines making a v-shape on his upper chest.

.

"I told you at the very beginning, "Sonic, you are already deeply caught in my true plan. Even as I tell you, you will be blissfully unaware of how your reality will truly decay into fetid chunks from your inside-out." Do you even remember that?"

Sonic stares back at Robotnik. "Why would I?"

Robotnik presses a button and Robo-Tails falls down, deactivated. Sonic is undisturbed.

"So the Egg Eraser blowing up and Mechanix killing you was all a prank?" Sonic asks.

"No..." Robotnik hesitates. "I did not anticipate that Mechanix could program his own mind at that stage. Mechanix and the Eraser Egg were both two options of destroying the world, but I had many more plans." He paused.

"It is obvious that I have overwhelmingly more power than you right now in every possible way, so if you want to enjoy living for just a little more time, you should listen to my master plan."

_At this point, Sonic can just stay still or he can directly attack Robotnik. If he attacks, skip to the boss section._

"Avoiding my past for now, I slowly began recording data and researched methods to attain complete control of Mobius. Given my advanced technology, almost any method would have worked were it not for you!

_Sonic the Hedgehog_

"My first attempt was a light probe into the dark. I started my campaign for mass roboticization and consequent mobilization of said forces. You just happened to be on the island I was experimenting on. All of those item boxes and springs? Mine. I was more lighthearted then."

_Sonic the Hedgehog 2_

"While you were fighting me, I was still increasing my infrastructure. I built _Metropolis_ and then the _Flying Fortress_. With my tremendous supply of relatively free labor, I rather quickly built the Death Egg. I started playing with you in more than my Egg-o-Matic, such as with the first Silver Sonic and my first Egg Suit. Trial #2."

_Sonic the Hedgehog 3_

"I had discovered the Floating Island, or Angelia. At this point, I knew about the Special Zone but unable to access it I focused on the Master Emerald. I knew you would try to thwart me, so I organized a path through the island as I had been doing."

_Sonic & Knuckles_

"I admit that for every mini-plan I get a little hopeful that one would **kill** you. I knew Silver II would fail, I knew you'd destroy Egg Suit II and the second Death Egg, but I still had to wait in my Egg-o-Matic as it burned around me."

"I was getting tired of waiting. I had enough data on you, so while you were off thinking you defeated the biggest, baddest baddy that's ever threatened the world, I was effortlessly agglomerating millions of calculations and hundreds of backup plans. My network of bases covered the entire planet. I had billions of robots under my control. It was so much, and yet not enough. The world was already in my hand, the problem was you."

"I'm flattered," Sonic interjects.

"As you should be. Now, my plan was very simple: always keep you distracted with increasingly difficult obstacles. This required technology that even I had not thought of yet, but conveniently I was researching Old Mobius in great detail upon recognition of the Emeralds' common origin. I was amazed to find three separate triumphs of their civilization: the Black Emerald, the Zenith, and Mechanix. So I explored the ruins of Ka'ralei, found the connection to the orbiting research station and the location of the Black Emerald. I explored Nexus and recreated its entire history and then learned of Mechanix's location."

_Blue Hill_

"I began my true plan immediately, sending my robots after the Chaos and Master Emeralds. I _easily_ abducted Tails and of course told you that the plan had already begun and there was nothing you could do. I had indeed factored in every possible course of action you could take, although I was gaining confidence that you really had no chance. I introduced you to Egg Hunter."

_Part 1_

"You had no choice but to rescue Tails. You had to hunt me down. So you did, and I slowly began your exposure to Old Mobius there. Now, I had already let the Deathegg descend towards Mobius but I let you know then. And I really did want to kill you. I did regret holding out on killing you, for quite a while. So you played the hero, saving the world, Apocalypse #1 stopped as planned. Meanwhile, I'm researching Mechanix in his sealed chamber, learning of his god-like potential in power and the more ingenious nano-scale regenerative ability. I create a road of energy that leads you to me for two reasons. One, to test out Mechanix's ability without Emeralds and the degree with which I could suppress both his preceding programming and his contained consciousness, and two, to make you later regret your lack of extremism. Yes, I planted that seed of doubt deep in you without so much as a word."

"It took me only a few hours, 20 at most, to understand all of Mechanix except for a few details. But note that I have been studying you, Sonic, for much, much longer than that. I have categorized and modeled your entire being from every layer imaginable, behavioral, subconscious, self-image, from the _gestalt_ to statistics on the angle and distances of your tiniest movements, down to your very chemical construction."

Sonic looks at Robotnik, and says nothing. This doesn't surprise him.

"This doesn't surprise you, of course. You've always wondered what reflects the intelligence of the world's most intelligent creature, that is, myself. I continue."

_Part 2_

"I passed on freeing Zaga, knowing full well his entire history and what he intended to do. I knew you'd free him. And I knew you'd follow me to Ka'ralei, where your education would slowly continue. I had already configured the portal to follow Mechanix, and lead you to the Flying Fury where I had Tails. Did you consider that it was too convenient? And you detached the warhead with ease, did you not? I was in control. I detonated that warhead to separate you and Tails again."

_Part 3_

"While you were temporarily incapacitated, I launched the Egg Tempest. I was leading Knuckles towards you, having already used Mechanix to exploit his suggestibility. You reach Apocalypse #3, you follow Mechanix like a good hedgehog, and your ego is dropped a peg as I beat the shit out of you."

"How intelligent," Sonic remarks dryly.

"Don't try, fool."

_Part 4_

"I send you to the space station, having modified the teleporter to its original form as a starpost, which would send you to the Special Zone. Through indirect means I partially understood the Void, and I wanted to kill you by sending there, but secondarily for you to directly experience Old Mobius. You couldn't get it out of your mind, could you? Then you fought Mechanix and the difficulty made you stronger."

_Part 5_

"You navigated the Eraser Egg, a structure made from my prototype Nanoeggs. Maybe you thought it was all going to end then. I did, partially, as I said. My prototype failed but I learned from it. Mechanix betrayed me but still did what I wanted him to. I nearly died, but I knew I could save myself. And you thought I was gone, you focused on Mechanix as your new enemy, unable to stop this momentum you've been building."

_Part 6_

"Zaga would pressure you too, of course. You didn't even question it; you just had to destroy him. Knowing him so well, you knew where he'd go, and you went there. You probably took the path through the mountains which led you through some very ancient echidna ruins, a fairly decent probability really. I send Egg Hunter out to start Apocalypse #5, having decided to take advantage of being in the shadow of your mind."

_Part 7_

"I didn't expect Egg Hunter to turn, but it didn't matter when Mechanix destroyed it. I had a camera in that room; I laughed so hard when I saw how you reacted! It was a remote possibility but it had the effect that you focused on Mechanix all the more! Mechanix takes the Master Emerald right from before you and takes you into his floating, changeable ship. He follows my example and modifies your environment to train you even while he tries to kill you. He thought he was a god and got cocky. Still managed to resurrect Old Mobius, which is what I was going to do as Apocalypse #7 after I ravaged the world with Mechanix fully powered under my control for Apocalypse #6. I knew this tortured you, I knew you would beat yourself up for that so hard. 'No one else could save the world but me, and I failed.'"

"Now, I truly did think that when Mechanix finally transformed into Zexagalaxius form, you would most certainly die. I carefully observed your Hyper and Super use during that battle. I saw how you managed to survive every single attack almost flawlessly. But your victory, despite reflecting how much power my training has given you, also reflects how narrow and dull I scratched your mind down to. You even got a personal reason to hate the echidnas. I didn't even need to be there for you to do what I was going to. You were going to activate the Zenith the entire time, Sonic!"

_Part 8_

"I knew Old and New Mobius would wage war against each other, well, that's almost axiomatic. I knew you'd travel the world from wherever you are to stop it, as you had with both Mechanix and me. Your great skill and power decimated all of your opposition because you were no longer in my trained, difficult environment. I desensitized Tails just the same to the point that he, too, desired battle and murder on a subconscious level. It was easy. You fought him and won, of course. You disposed of Knuckles if he was in your way. And then Zaga would meet you there, desiring to expose his tiny plan to _someone _before he destroys the world based on some absurd philosophy. Then New Chaos was unleashed, which would have been my Final Apocalypse had I not been mistaken with Mechanix. You defeat Zaga and you somehow made the energy disappear. Now, I was expecting you to fail, so I wanted to send Silver Sonic to show that it was better than you by saving the world. However, taking your Emeralds after fucking with you was fine, too. It used the energy to activate my second version of Nanoegg which could roboticize anything it touched, and which promptly did so. At this point, I did what I told you I'd always do; that is, create the world in my image."

_Part 9_

"I had the world but you were still in it. So once again I led you through a trained course, mocking you recklessly with Neo-Mechanix, Metal Sonic and Egg Assassin. I quickly analyzed your Ultra form and knew it was taking its toll on your mind. So I tapped into that and activated the thousands of tiny probes installed in your brain. Oh, did I forget to mention that? That my Nanoeggs are on a smaller than microscopic scale? Because they are, and you didn't see them when they basically flew right through your body. By the way, that means I can roboticize you at any moment. Anyway, I decided delirious hallucinations were the most fun to try on you."

.

"So now what?" Sonic asks. "You've got me figured out 100% past, present and future. Even if it's all your fault, I don't even feel that much hate for you. I don't feel scared, either. I don't feel... anything. That's what you wanted, right?"

"I'll admit I had a cathartic desire for you to break down and reveal all of your vulnerability, but I wanted you in this state for a much more suitable purpose. Quite simply, I made you make yourself into nothing more than a fighting machine. I made you roboticize yourself!"

"Is that it? Was that the whole point?"

"No... of course not. The point was to win, and then enjoy abusing you."

"You don't say that with any conviction at all, Robotnik."

"It's just hollow, like some dry bone so dense it takes centuries to die but painfully slowly fleck by fleck. What am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to feel?"

"An endless expanse with no horizon, your body doesn't move, but you stare, you constantly stare and you want to scream. You can only stand."

Robotnik suddenly looks up and jumps over his chair. "We can't let this carry on any longer, Sonic."

"But I can't let you win. Not now. And neither can you."

Sonic says, "Don't speak for me. But yes, of course. I've already promised myself that I'm going to kill you."

Robotnik laughs. "I know that. Now, tell me, why am I wrong?"

"I don't need to tell you why you're wrong. I just need to kill you," Sonic says plainly.

"I don't care if nothing is left."

Robotnik is quiet. He is looking the other way. "Of course, you would rather die than become immortal."

"Than become a _robot_," Sonic corrects.

"Your consciousness and memories remain, Sonic. You can even delete your memories if it bothers you," Robotnik adds.

Appalled, Sonic asks, "Don't try to convert me, you think I'd give in now of all times?"

Robotnik explains. "Even if your roboticized body is destroyed, your consciousness remains in the virtual world. I would give you the most autonomy of all, Sonic, you could do almost whatever you want."

Sonic, unimpressed, argues, "Your master slave? Okay, listen, I started this journey with the intent to stop you, and now that I know how dangerous you are, I'm not going to relax until I am completely sure you're dead and you can't come back. I don't know why you even bother trying to trick me if you can really control me. Even if my options are predetermined by you, I'll still struggle in however tiny a box you squeeze me in, with all of my strength, no matter what the circumstance, until I destroy you!"

"Do you really think that limitless power you have is yours?" Robotnik suddenly asks.

"I'd do it even if I didn't have All of the Emeralds," Sonic responds.

"I don't mean that, you idiot! I mean your powerful propensity to _never lose_. Do you know how much you've actually experienced? Doesn't it linger on your mind how mind-numbingly long and complex your journey has been?" Robotnik asks.

"Of course it does! So!? I have a strong interest in staying alive, so I can kill the enemy."

"Such a good soldier, just as I trained you. No, Sonic, not even you could have possibly gotten this far without dying at least once. Your... _luck..._ is very interesting."

.

"Fortunately, I factor luck into my equations," Robotnik says. He turns and looks at Sonic.

"And my equations are quite complex already," he continues. Sonic suddenly feels his shoes stiffen up. He looks down at them and tries to move, but the shoes resist. He looks up at Robotnik who is walking away, twiddling his moustache with no reaction.

"Your parents taught you to be careful where you 'tumble' in your young childhood."

The ground transformed into a flat, wide square that began slowly sinking into the earth.

"You loved exploring your house. Then you saw the outside, learned how to run and how to jump. Your parents bought you shoes from my business back before I had seriously begin expanding. I had installed sensors into all of the shoes and many of my other products, scanning the population for information. All of it was useful when amalgamated but you attracted my interest. You had a very rare ability that when cultivated could possibly challenge my intellect. That's what I thought at the time."

The platform is now twice Sonic's height below ground level. Sonic just stares back at Robotnik.

"You represent spontaneous nature, which grows through challenge into something that could contradict the universe, often destroying itself in the process. Me, I am logical nature, I am what always happens whether _you_ happen or not. I am efficiency. I am cleaning up. I am death."

Rectangles in the wall suddenly slide up, revealing narrow chasm from which water begins gushing out into the square hole, splashing all over Sonic.

Sonic looks at Robotnik. "Alright, enough playing around."

He tries to pull out energy from the Emeralds, but the shoes simply absorb all of the power he pushes against them. The water starts rising up his shoe.

"I have solved all suffering, all problems of efficiency, all problems of organization."

The water rises above his ankles.

"Did you think I so simply forgot about water, your main weakness?" Robotnik asks.

The water rises above his knees.

Sonic grabs his shoes, trying to pull his feet out of them. They tighten against his efforts.

The water is rising up to Sonic's hips. His head is under the turbulent water, wondering how his Ultra power is ignored. His feet can barely move and for some reason stop moving. He rises above the water, breathes, looks down at his feet. It doesn't feel right.

"Remember, Sonic, the Emeralds are only conduits of power from the Special Zone. And yet, how were they made? By compressing Chaos Energy. Think! Power rings, star posts, Black Stones, living things, natural forces! Removing time, all energy is connected, no matter where it is. That's a hint, you know."

The water is halfway up Sonic's chest. Sonic is losing control of most of his body. He realizes that his feet are being roboticized and it's going up his legs very slowly.

"Was my hint too deep for you? Aha. Haha. Hahahaha!"

"You aren't moving, Sonic," Robotnik says.

The water is at his nipples. He can't move his waist.

"The water is cold, isn't it?" Robotnik

Sonic looks at Robotnik. Robotnik smiles and laughs, trying to be creepy. Sonic shrugs. "No, Robotnik. No. You can't beat me, no matter what you do. Even if you try to kill me, it's not possible. You can't kill me."

Robotnik laughs. "Finally, you said it. You admitted that it isn't normal. Because _normally_, you would die from this. What I'm about to _do to you_, I mean. And by _do to you_, I mean _**kill you**_."

The water is just above his shoulders and his chin is getting wet. His entire body is getting colder, seemingly immobile.

"You aren't roboticizing me?" Sonic asks. "I mean, why roboticize me in water as if the water would kill me? Are you trying to kill me and then roboticize me? I don't understand."

The water starts lapping at Sonic's face.

Robotnik smirked. "You cheeky little shit. Are you criticizing me while I am drowning you?

Sonic holds his breath as the water goes over his head, but he still stares defiantly back at Robotnik.

"I'm _not_ roboticizing you," Robotnik robotistates.

The water is now starting to rise above Sonic's head, filling the entire pool halfway up. Robotnik says, "I need your body to be in prime condition to suffer tremendous amounts of physical pain before I then actually kill you in a way that will overload every form of consciousness you have with the extremes of pain and bad." He says this as the water rises, knowing well that Sonic couldn't understand any of it underwater, as he was now waiting on his stamina until he dies.

Sonic suddenly hears in his mind Robotnik's voice crystal clear and even moreso, saying, "All of the air is filled with Nanoeggs now, allowing me to transmit digital information directly into your brain through the Nanoeggs I installed there (but only there). Each Nanoegg is installed with a tiny bit of Power Ring like my first model but also a tiny Black Gem."

Sonic thinks, "I'll survive, and whenever I can get the chance, I'll fight you and win until I kill you and you die."

Robotnik laughs. "I don't know how you're going to survive when I take the Emeralds and all your Power Rings away from you."

But Sonic can't hear that, as he is drowning underwater. He drowns even in Ultra form. Seconds are forever lost, but Sonic is motionless in response. His mind screams for movement, for an escape, its awareness starting to fill with pain, with desire, to survive, to breathe! He gasps for air, and water rushes down his throat. He closes his larynx, drinks the water, and the feeling is maddening, and then, Sonic blacks out.

He slowly comes to, realizing his arms and legs are bound by something cold, metallic, unyielding. He opens his eyes, finding himself suspended in the air above a small platform. He stretches his eyes looking at its edges, and from what he can gather the platform is also suspended above some gigantic space he could mostly only imagine. It wasn't anything he recognized, but then again, it's not like that ever mattered. Robotnik stands before him.

He tries to say something, but his mouth doesn't respond. He can hardly taste anything, but his tongue and lips feel numb. Robotnik steps forward. "Of course I didn't want you to die," he says, answering a lingering thought on Sonic's mind.

"You must suffer slowly." His arms are held behind his back, but he brings them into view, showing the steel rod he held in both hands. He gradually lifts it to the side. "Painfully... slowly..."

.

_[Warning: Disturbing graphic material ahead.]_

He swings the rod and strikes Sonic in the stomach. He gasps, the air blown out of him. Before he can recover, Robotnik hits him again in the ribs, breaking a few, and then slams his arm, fracturing it. Sonic whines with what little air he has left. "Don't fucking whine, pitiful little shit."

Robotnik laughs, throws the rod over the edge and turns around. "I'm just getting started." He grabs something long, like a rope, piling it into loops on one arm. He turns again to Sonic, holding some kind of strip covered with thorns and razors. "I created the modern New Mobius. I developed its best technology, I supplied all industries with materials, innovation and finance. I set limits smart politicians wouldn't break." He starts wrapping the strip around Sonic's body, pushing the sharp points and edges deep into Sonic's skin. He groans, shouts from the back of his throat. "It wasn't enough. I controlled the system but the agents within still acted irrationally. Errors such as emotion and spirituality still dominated the world. I needed full control. I needed roboticization."

With a little bit of the strip left in his hold, Robotnik backs a few steps away and looks at Sonic, with no change in expression. Silence for a moment. He then yanks the strip as hard as he can, pulling it across Sonic's body. His skin tears all across his body, the wounds made deeper as the entire length of the strip is pulled around the same areas. Sonic screams. Blood splatters across the metal floor. As the final bit of the strip finally flops onto the floor, Robotnik throws the rest over the edge, carrying it all over.

"Even with the world shaking under my reign of terror, even as I developed bases and even cities of pure machinery, populated by my obedient automatons, I desired more control. I needed the entire world. I wouldn't be satisfied otherwise. I was obsessed with the idea. The ideal." He turns away again. Quickly turns back, holding a gun.

He walks up, holds it up, aims carefully at his torso. Sonic looks adamantly at Robotnik, wincing and moaning. "At first I found you remarkable, a variable that confounds entire plans of mine. Then I observed you and found you plain yet not any less remarkable. Your tendency, no, your necessary improvement against all obstacles... You should have died a long, long time ago, and yet you live, even now. Damn you." He blasts several rounds into Sonic's body.

"I've outsmarted you, I've got you trapped here, I'm torturing you, all while all of Mobius is completely roboticized, under my control." He shoots Sonic again. "I'm not satisfied."

He looks at the gun, and then throws it far off the edge. He turns away again, but doesn't look for anything else. He is quiet. Sonic makes labored breaths, his consciousness dipping under the immense pain and blood loss. He tastes the metallic tinge of blood in his mouth. He spits it out. The blood plops right behind Robotnik's feet.

.

"Y...you..." he tries.

"You can't... kill... me... You... _need_... me..." Sonic slowly says.

"We have conquered the mortal realm. Life, death, truth. Everything we once did no longer means anything. But we can't stop if nothing can stop us. Like a projectile accelerated until it escapes the gravity of successively larger masses until it is lost, alone in space. There is no closure. There is no end. There is only the process."

Sonic moves his arms, wiggles in what little space he is given. He looks around for the Emeralds, or something to power himself. Robotnik turns and looks at Sonic, who stares back at him. "It doesn't matter. None of this matters. Nothing I've ever done matters and nothing will ever matter. Math, physics, nothing meaningful, just rationalization, translation into language, into law. Dead words. Engineering, robotics, natural optimizations, law of least movement. Philosophy, personality, illusions, constructions of nothing from nothing. Emotions are just chemicals, damn it!"

He turns away, "I... I'm not satisfied. You're the last living being, the one I want to die the most and yet... I don't want you to die. I don't want to be alone. Victorious. Then what? The process. Only the process."

He looks at Sonic again. "I have designed sentience. I have escaped death. So have you. We're immortal, we are only the processes that carry us through meaningless differences in time and space. I hate you... but fuck it..." He operates a console to Sonic's side, and the locks suddenly release, making him fall flat on his face into the puddle of his blood.

"It isn't you that is immortal, and isn't me, either. There are grander forces, and we are just their avatars. I understand that, I understand that all of our actions here are predetermined, but I still can't accept it. My emotion... I still have a little, a tiny little left... and I want... I want to fight."

Sonic very slowly pushes himself to his feet, grimacing in pain. "I don't care who wins... I just want to engage my entire mind and body into a fight... something different, however temporary. Even if I win, I'll just... kill myself after the battle."

Sonic looks questioningly at Robotnik, who still continues.. "We pushed ourselves this far. This is our faults. We could have been happier in our boxes. But we wanted stupid shit like freedom and truth. We wanted. And thus the process. There is no escape, death only shuts our awareness of it."

Sonic leans against the machine he was constricted in. He breathes heavily, still bleeding profusely. Robotnik turns around and seats himself in the Egg-o-Matic situated in the platform. He presses a button, revealing a series of columns that jet out from below, each holding an Emerald and one holding a hundred Power Rings.

"This is the least you'll need to fight square with me."

Sonic stares at him with wide eyes.

"If I was going to kill you, I would have let you drowned. But... I can't kill you... I just... not any other way..."

There is a slight pause and then Robotnik looks startled. "I'm not going to hold back like I have been for the sake of my master plan. I am going to kill you," he says. He repeats this. "I'm going to kill you. I'm **going** to **kill you**. I want to... I must... _**kill you**_..."

The platform suddenly shifts and Sonic falls off the edge along with the Emeralds and rings. Despite his weakened state, Sonic transforms to Ultra in mid-air as Robotnik's platform sinks into the great crater below, which wraps itself around it on command. Sonic manages to zip out before it closes on itself. Just as he does, the entire structure moves very rapidly, changing its shape.

Sonic looks down at the ground, at South Island, at Mobius, his only home, completely roboticized, shape-shifting under Robotnik's command. It builds itself up, mountain ranges upon continents rising before him, about to attack. Wounded but conscious, Sonic was never thinking about what to do or why. He avoids hearing his own voice, remembering his actions, seeing himself. He survives. He fights.

.

.

.

[Act 3 Boss: ROBOTNIK]

Sonic hovers far above a massive crater with a perimeter beyond the horizon, and he realizes this is still the same abyss he witnessed earlier. Looking at it, he notices it seemingly healing over, but its immense size makes the process seem like it's too long. As he stares into the darkness, he is suddenly caught unaware by an extremely powerful shock wave emitted from the collective energy of the entire planet. It comes with such speed and force that Sonic's seems to scramble, his vision and perception of the moment chopped into pieces.

He blinks, twitches his extremities, and looks around. In what seemed to be just a second, Sonic seemed to have been launched far into Mobius' exosphere. He turns around, seeing a black world crossed with straight lines of bright light. As he watches it, he notices that its hemispheres very slowly rotate in opposite directions, stopping only to alternate between the lateral and longitudinal like a Rubik's cube. From this distance he can see the scale of the Nanoegg transformation, although the details are vague beyond movement of the land masses around some points. Even the oceans are rerouted, blackening from the extreme amounts of industrial waste being generated.

Sonic heads back towards Mobius. As he does, multiple fields of translucent energy phase into visibility, covering the planet except from the poles where they are projected. Large cloud systems develop in the atmosphere in a very uncannily coordinated manner, a humongous vortex that points directly at Sonic. And while he slowly progresses through space to see all of this, he notices tiny pinpricks of light on the surface arise.

.

He has no time to think about it. He is suddenly surrounded by waves of energy and rocket fire, quickly followed by an entire armada of space robots. Turning around, he sees them radiating out from the moon, which is also undergoing a process of total roboticization. The robots are quite varied, from the size of Sonic's fist to giant battleships like Egg Eraser miniatures. Their shapes are free-formed, radial, or pointed, of course being extremely varied in composition beyond that. There are indeed hundreds of different types, some variations on the same theme, all organized by function and within every type there could be hundreds if not thousands of individual robots. And all of them, with the lights from their various propulsion systems and cockpits, flock en masse around Sonic with the sole intent to kill him. The vast majority of their attacks don't affect Sonic, using traditional energy sources, however by the sheer number of attacks and attackers Sonic still finds himself surrounded by harmful Black Energy from the size of arm-width lasers to mile-wide charged blasts with inversely proportional speeds. Some of the robots are equipped with "arms" holding melee weapons such as beam swords and whips amongst many others, to engage Sonic in direct combat. By the sheer amount of enemies he faces, Sonic can never relax. In addition, they move strategically to adapt to and exploit Sonic's orientation and movement as much as possible. In effect, this changes the shape and density of the vacuoles of safe space. Should Sonic ever stay still long enough, his enemies will attempt to coordinate their attacks such that solid rings of Black Energy are made to close in on him again and again until he dies.

Sonic's main concern besides staying alive, however, is moving around Mobius' energy field to the poles where he can re-enter the atmosphere and find Robotnik again. However, he continually finds more resistance as he flies on, still so incredibly far from the planet. Clouds of Nanoeggs assemble structures such as immensely large shields to physically block Sonic, although he can spin dash through them. Many of them create turrets and fields of Black Energy to make it dangerous to do so. Apparently directed by Robotnik's will, they strategically build in reaction to Sonic's movement and direction while assembling a greater structure meant to shape where he can go and ultimately to completely surround and trap him. This is a distinct possibility given the speed of assemblage, but not an immediate one given the scale.

Surviving and progressing are both ultimately tied to Sonic's movement, and although Robotnik attempts to remove his liberties, he can simply destroy whatever is in his path. As he closes in on Mobius, this is indeed what he must do as the pinpricks have expanded into large fireballs propelling giant rockets even larger than the Flying Fury, with rings around them holding even more battle robots which detach and form a new front against Sonic that largely acts in the same way. For some reason, they can pass through the energy fields with no consequence.

.

Once he reaches the pole (North or South), he starts his re-entry. However, the storm, perhaps hundreds if not thousands of miles wide, has followed him the entire time, making the entire planet seem like a giant eyeball. He accelerates through the thermosphere, avoiding a few rockets on the way. He passes through a few ELVES that last barely a fraction of a second. About 60 miles above the surface he hits the mesosphere, and just as he does an incredibly large red sprite discharges from above the storm directly at him! The discharge is relatively slower, consisting of many gigantic balls of ionized energy about the size of a city block extremely rapidly falling down and then others rising up. Sonic's speed at this point is just enough to avoid them. In addition, blue jets blast out from the tempest directly at his position, although not as often as the sprites.

Passing through the ionosphere, he eventually reaches the troposphere and the upper surface of the black storm. As he gets close enough to observe the texture of the whirling dark clouds, he notices that their movements seem very uncannily ordered. Diving into it, he is suddenly surrounded by darkness often illuminated by the explosive flashes of lightning that often seem to target him, and the fast whooshing currents of ice that can somehow harm Sonic, and indeed seem to whip around him to consciously trap and attack him as well. As Sonic drops through, pushed around haphazardly by wind and his own avoidance of hazards, he realizes that now even the air itself has been roboticized somehow.

Meanwhile, robots have been following him down from space, rocketing up from the ground and seemingly spawning within the tempest itself. While they all attack Sonic separately, a large portion of them begin to channel the various elements of the storm (that is, the electricity, the wind, and the ice) and to use them as directed weapons. For Sonic, all this means is that he won't be able to count on the hazards occasionally being out of his way, but on the other hand he's moving so fast he'll simply avoid most of their attacks.

.

Eventually, Sonic breaks through the eye walls into the eye of the storm which is remarkably narrow given the continent-spanning size of it all. Once within, looking down he sees an entire region of the planet contained between the walls like water and dirt at the bottom of a glass. Tentacles of nanomachinery stretch out from the storm, letting loose attacks of every sort it can manage along with plenty of spawning. Some of the tentacles stretch downward to the ocean, a majority becoming waterspouts all up and down the Fujita scale. The stormless sky is still full of robots and floating battleships from horizon to horizon, all, of course, targeting Sonic. The world is cast into almost pure shadow from the storm reflecting most of the sun's light back into space, and yet it is almost always flashing alit from the nearly constant lightning strikes and launched energy projectiles. Sonic then remembers Robotnik's air armada was called the Egg Tempest, and finds himself smirking somehow.

.

Although he can board many of the ships to destroy them, given the sheer number he just keeps on dropping straight for the ocean surface. As he does, looking at it, he notices that even the ocean is in apocalyptic chaos with multi-story waves tearing the surface, flowing around maelstroms the size of islands. As for the islands, they themselves are moving through the waters as if they were gigantic battleships, their mountains like giant cannons launching jets of smoking, molten rock at Sonic. With enough lateral distance from his shallow angle of attack, he realizes that even the tectonic plates are being moved to kill him.

Robots seem to emerge from every surface, from the ocean, the islands, the sky, space, and even the air itself. Everything attacks him, all of the air, all of the water, all of the earth and the fire underneath it channeled through, all of the electricity, all of the energy. And yet, Sonic continues. He can avoid a majority of it, he can find tiny bubbles of safe space and if he can't, he can restrict the damage he takes. His speed of movement and mind, his experience and his instinct just keep him alive.

.

In the center of the storm an island is forming, the earth pushing itself up and transforming into a gargantuan fortress, covered with thousands, if not millions of turrets. Large portions of it create massive weapons on the scale of tens of miles: circular saws, railguns, pistons. Endless waves of enemies flood out of the island in such great amounts that dwarf the ones coming from every other location.

Sonic lands on it. His degrees of freedom are greatly reduced as the ground underneath him changes very rapidly to trap and attack him. However, the speed he accumulated from his descent launch him through almost all of the obstacles and all of the enemies. Combined with the fireball around him, he cuts through everything like a hot knife through butter. He should take care not to enter the island as the machinery within the earth could easily stop his movements and lock him in a small box, to be filled with Black Energy so as to assuredly kill him.

.

He reaches the central mountain and notices that all of the ocean around the island is draining far away as more and more of the planet's material is pulled, stretched and shaped into nothing but war material. He effortlessly navigates the platforms and channels, avoiding the nearly constant danger arising from essentially every single thing, no matter how small or large. As he reaches the peak, it suddenly explodes open and the tower from before launches out, extending like a tentacle back into the sky. Sonic runs up its sides, avoiding the rings of turrets and energy dispersers, running and jumping through its shape-shifting structures that still can't slow him down. The tower splits into segments like a rocket but Sonic easily bridges the gaps. On the last one, internal engines launch out explosions of energy and fuel to blast it forward. Sonic follows it back through the sky while robots continue to rain from space and rise from the ocean and ground. Solid streams of energy are shot back at him but at this point it's hardly worth mentioning. Sonic decides to enter the tower through the huge exhaust into the engine, and although he takes significant damage, he does so.

The inside of the tower is very much a traditional base but Sonic is moving so fast that he can hardly make out its details besides the blurring fields of color rushing by. Doors and even walls are torn to pieces behind him, and no robot can withstand his attacks nor catch up to him. In seconds, he reaches the top of the tower, with the semi-spherical glass dome at the top containing Robotnik. Here, he stops.

.

"As I thought," Robotnik says through a loudspeaker. Sonic spindashes at the glass, but for some reason he can't cut through. This sudden change is quite surprising. "This is where I want you, this level of skill and speed. Now I can kill you at your best."

Sonic suddenly finds himself being launched away from the dome and thus jumps off the ground he's on. The tower has split apart, revealing what was contained in the space inside. It was a gigantic Egg Suit, five stories tall, massive wings with a rocket backpack. Robotnik's signature walrus teeth logo and egg-shaped body, fiercely shaped and defined with layers of non-Nanoegg structure. It is motionless in the air.

A heavy synthesized voice proclaims, "Mecha Robotnik: **on-line**."

"While Robo-Mobius has been stalling you, I have finished building this, my Final Apocalypse. Now, you... you suffer!"

.

A pulse of energy sends Sonic hurtling backwards but he manages to push against it. He's still somewhat far away, but before he can regain his orientation he is shot at by four separate beams of Black Energy from the four corners of Mecha Robotnik's two wings. They track him no matter where he goes with perfect precision, and his rings deplete at an incredibly fast rate. In addition, he lets out a constant stream of rockets, dumb and smart, bullet fire, bombs, proximity and timed, and energy projectiles of all shapes, sizes and trajectories. All of it is charged with Black Energy, of course.

Altogether, Robotnik attacks Sonic at once with perhaps fifty different types of projectile weapons. This essentially creates an extremely large field of _pure d__amaging force_ with a few rapidly moving and changing islands of safety. In order to stay alive, Sonic must exploit the fact that he loses rings steadily and not all at once, and that he recovers whenever he's not taking damage.

As this happens, Mecha Robotnik will pursue Sonic at full speed, attempting to attack him with the force from an entire arm or leg. It can transform its limbs to various weapons:

- Sword

- Gun

- Explosion-thrower

Robotnik is very sharp, and as soon as Sonic is in range he will attack, and he won't stop until Sonic is dead. Sonic can try to run away, however the immense size and even more incredible speed of Mecha Robotnik will give him little more of a hair's breadth, so to speak. What's more, all of Robotnik's robots who originate from all over and inside the world and even from the Moon line up in a several 10-mile radius from their battle, watching and being ready just in case Sonic tries to escape. The lesser enemies essentially form a large and deep wall of their own bodies, constantly attack Sonic and push forwards so as to deflect his motion back into the "ring". Should Sonic somehow manage to push through anyway, he will eventually return to the tempest, which has increased in sheer power and violence to the point where Sonic can easily lose control and get swept away. The storm gradually lowers closer and closer to the ocean or ground, and as everything is roboticized everything will attack Sonic in some way. If he stays long enough in it, Mecha Robotnik will chase him down with ease as the storm essentially forms a bubble for it.

Sonic can alternatively push through the field of damage and Mecha Robotnik's gigantic, fast attacks by taking advantage of the miniscule recovery time he needs for each separate attack (including the beams, which are really 4 very rapid pulse-jets in rotating order.) At close range, it tries to grab or swipe away Sonic with its hands while the surface of its body closest to Sonic hardens up and the perimeter around that point forms a paraboloid of sorts that concentrates the fire on Sonic to an increasing degree.

.

If Sonic can somehow reach the surface despite Mecha Robotnik moving away from him at all levels, he can attack. He must dash straight into the hardened Nanoegg surface until he burns and crushes it with the force of his propulsion. Eventually, he breaks through and can bounce around the "softer" interior. The damage depends on how much material Sonic destroyed and touched and for how long he was inside Mecha Robotnik. 15 bounces per 5 seconds is equivalent to a single hit. He only has a few seconds before Robotnik transfers Black Energy from Mobius into Mecha Robotnik, to incinerate Sonic within him or to launch him away from him if he managed to get back outside. Sonic tries to fly away as far as possible to minimize the shock to his ring count.

Mecha Robotnik, being made of Nanoeggs, recovers the damage rather quickly, however the rate of recovery slows down for the accumulated damage Sonic gives. In addition, the sudden use of Black Energy causes Sonic to move faster and perceive things as moving slower. However, Robotnik also memorizes Sonic's movements and smartly blocks off ways he attacked him before. Sonic can still break through his blocks, which start from his entire limbs put in the way to an increased concentration of damage in the field, or move around them, especially near the end of the battle.

.

As the battle continues, Robotnik changes his strategy, taking advantage of Sonic's comfort in his familiarity of the attack patterns. He adapts several consistent patterns, one attack always following another, to classically condition Sonic's responses. He then takes advantage of any misstep Sonic makes and suddenly surprises him with a "random" attack, often a very fast or powerful one. In addition, he changes his movements from directly towards Sonic to circumambulating around him. He starts exposing his multi-layered strategy, with every backup plan having two more backup plans, each attack followed up by another.

He strategically moves and organizes his many groups of robots, bringing them in closer to their battle. He alters the ground below them to create several large cannons, which absorb a large amount of Black Energy from around them and fires it in a constant, straight beam that can very quickly kill Sonic. As more beams are fired, they form corners of planes of less dense Black Energy, which themselves form edges of larger prismatic shapes which become denser as more beams are fired. Finally, he demands the air itself to roboticize into various structures designed to slow down or even encapsulate Sonic so he could be more easily killed.

.

Despite such rigorous planning, Sonic is just too fast and getting ever faster. He avoids what he can, survives the rest. His attacks start piling up on Mecha Robotnik and it's clear to all parties involved who will ultimately win at this rate. Thus Robotnik suddenly lets loose his full force of attacks. He calls in all of his robots to assist his assault, creating traps and turrets in mid-air, directing the giant land cannons at Sonic, and attacking with full force and speed with Mecha's limbs. Most of the robots are obliterated in the extreme crossfire, but they constantly replenish their own numbers. The amount of Black Energy being drawn is so enormous that it can be visibly seen being pulled in in spherical waves from all around them, causing the field of danger to similarly rareify and compress with the energy. In the last few hits, Robotnik transforms Mecha's entire chest into a gigantic energy cannon which fires a beam so concentrated that it can instantly kill Sonic and so large that Sonic has no choice but to fly out of the way or die. Of course, Robotnik tries to block his way out but Sonic manages to squeeze through.

After 40 hits, the Nanoegg structure of Mecha slows its chaotic movement at an increasing scale, until even its giant limbs are motionless. Robotnik tries to pull in energy to counteract this, but by doing so large chunks of the robot simply explode without any restoration. This causes a chain reaction, and soon the entire thing is blasting itself to pieces. So as a last attack, Robotnik uses the explosions to propel what's left of the giant hunk of metal towards Sonic, spinning it around wildly so its limbs can whack Sonic when he tries to escape.

.

The glass dome or "head", however, detaches before this and floats on its own. The structure containing the room containing Robotnik reveals itself as a small house-sized, egg-shaped Egg-o-Matic. As this local area seems to have been somehow drained of energy, or perhaps that the Nanoeggs here have malfunctions, Robotnik immediately tries to make an escape through his forces but Sonic naturally chases him down. He easily avoids his robot super-military and all of the roboticized elements assaulting him or otherwise blasting straight through them. He catches up to the Super Egg-o-Matic in almost no time at all and rams into it again and again. However, the Nanoeggs in this machine are still functional. Instead of transforming, they regenerate at a faster rate than Sonic's, or at least just enough to prevent permanent damage. So Sonic simply targets the glass dome instead, which takes some pummeling but eventually breaks.

.

Sonic stops inside the room, and likewise Robotnik stops the movement of the small ship. They stare at each other, the only other thing in the room being the console and seat.

"You could have taken the Emeralds at any time. You could have killed me when I was normal. With them, I'm not only invincible, but I improve at an accelerating rate. You don't really want me to die, do you?" Sonic asks.

Robotnik smirks. He stands up, hands held behind his back and walks off the elevated platform, which then lowers itself, the console and seat down below the floor. A trap door slides seamlessly shut level to the floor, as if it was never there.

"I never said I was perfect. In fact, even now, I am learning. I am improving myself, as you are. I made this scenario a challenge for me despite having the power of an entire planet in my immediate control. But I've had enough of playing around. This time, there won't be any margin of error for you to indulge in."

He brings his hands in front of him. He holds out his left hand stretched in front, holding in his palm a normal egg. Sonic watches it, and him, very carefully.

It vanishes.

Sonic suddenly remembers the delirium, the hallucinations. He braces himself.

"You're the last living thing, the last autonomous being, besides myself. More than that, my archnemesis, my most hated enemy... I want you to die very sincerely, I _assure_ you. But to simply overpower and kill you would be too easy. No, by growing you this strong, by putting limits on what I can do, I can..."

He stops, and suddenly looks away.

He then just says, "No," and suddenly pulls his arm forward. A pistol materializes in his hand and he immediately fires a pure-black shot at Sonic. If Sonic doesn't dodge, the shot will instantly kill him.

.

.

For once and for all, Sonic finally fights Robotnik face-to-face. The Super Egg-o-Matic slowly floats through the world. Many of the robots follow it, watching from afar. The tempest rages on but very gradually it begins to weaken and dissipate. Most of the ocean, sky and land around them is completely motionless, configured in some construction devoid of energy.

Although the space under the glass dome is nearly a hundred feet in diameter, compared to the boundless battlefields of the previous fight, it is relatively asphyxiating. Intensifying this pressure is the fact that all of Robotnik's actions including attacks and using some of the items he has (which shall be listed shortly) are either made of or charged with a Black Energy so concentrated that even at Sonic's current energy levels will kill him.

As Sonic may recall, Robotnik was actually faster than him in bursts several times in the past _(e.g. in the Death Egg in Sonic 2_) and this is true even now. Although space is limited, Robotnik can and will run a lot, around Sonic and even across the ceiling. He will also jump (off the ceiling, too) and roll whenever he finds an opportunity to escape or attack.

He can be faster than Sonic's perception in millisecond flashes of extreme speed. He often uses this just to feint with attacks and movements. He may go one way only to go another, or he may pull out a gun only to strike with a sword. Sonic won't know what to do until Robotnik stops feinting. However, especially as time goes on, he can continue feinting until he produces several afterimages that attack Sonic at once. He can only do this for a few seconds at first but later it can go up to several minutes. In addition, he can sprint while doing this although it drastically reduces the duration of both.

Robotnik has fought Sonic more than anyone else, and now he's mostly roboticized in addition to being extremely intelligent. His tactics are not only very responsive to whatever Sonic does, but they are indeed optimally structured to bring Robotnik the maximum advantage. There is a structured stream of events he produces, randomized when he wants to deal damage and consistent when he wants Sonic to act a certain way (often to lure him into damage). He memorizes every response Sonic makes and adjusts his tactics to discourage the most successful ones. He _analyzes_ every attack, finding ways to avoid it in the future, ways to exploit it for damage, and the psychology behind it (being able to adjust his actions so that Sonic's actions create a more exploitable psychology). Robotnik is not completely independent of emotions, himself, and if he has a lot of success he becomes more confident and attacks more, and if it happens quickly he could even be cocky and try to kill Sonic quickly (leaving himself open for attack). Likewise, if he takes a lot of damage he will become cautious and back away more, and the faster he takes on all of that damage, the more scared he gets until he runs away completely. If Sonic corners him in this state, he will respond in the same way as Robotnik does near the end of the battle (_which will be mentioned near the end of this battle description._)

Overall, Robotnik's strategy is to find what Sonic is most vulnerable to and force him to face it, while constantly engaging his senses and slowly whittling away his stamina. His main intent at all times is to win by completely destroying Sonic, and as the battle continues he improves at doing this so long as he scores some attacks, becoming faster, stronger and more accurate. However, he is aware of his own energy and indeed analyzes every scenario in terms of cost and benefit. As the battle nears the end, he may become slightly more desperate but he always keeps his cool whenever he can.

The full list of his actions is this:

- Movement

- running

- rolling

- leaping

- jumping

- Positioning for attacks

- Evasion

- Disorientation (feints, baits)

- Attacks

- Weaponry: Robotnik holds a cylinder in his hand made of Nanoeggs which transforms into the form he chooses.

- Blunt

- Hammer: Powerful but slow swings, can deflect Sonic if he's in a spin ball. He can spin the head on the ground, riding it like a top towards Sonic where he uses the inertia and rotation for a near-deadly strike.

- Morning Star: A little faster but also weaker. He can choose single spikes to extend out to poke Sonic, or extend almost all of them.

- Quarterstaff: Weak, but once Robotnik starts a combination attack, his momentum does not stop. He can use this to maneuver such as by vaulting or spinning around. He can extend the staff to push Sonic into a wall, and if he's stuck, spin down the staff and slam into him (deadly).

- Whip: Weak, but very fast, and can be extended to long distances.

- Blade

- Dagger: He can throw many of these towards Sonic, or conceal it when Sonic comes close or is unaware of what's behind him, to fatally stab him.

- Rapier: Robotnik uses a standard fencing pose, always facing Sonic, and attempts to stab him several times. Although it can be deadly, Sonic can easily avoid it.

- Scimitar: Robotnik spins the handle and tosses it between his hands as he moves, as if the scimitar was dancing in the air by itself, before slicing at Sonic in tight arcs. Sonic should be especially careful if Robotnik speeds up, as the attacks are already hard to avoid. Robotnik can also make several radiating, wide arcs from afar.

- Katana: Robotnik often moves fast with this weapon, which he cuts with split-second speed and fatal accuracy and power. Sonic should especially be wary of when Robotnik sheathes the sword but doesn't change the weapon, as his _iai_ will kill him instantly unless he can strike him first (which counts as 2 hits if he does).

- Bastard sword: Despite its immense size, Robotnik can move this behemoth still rather quickly. The power of a single slice is near-fatal, and almost every slice sends a shockwave of energy through the air to boot. Surprisingly, Robotnik can even ride on the flat side of its blade as it flies towards Sonic, but this makes him rather vulnerable.

- Lance: Moderately fast and strong, Robotnik usually only uses this at medium ranges or when he's dashing.

- Halberd: Also used at mid-range, this is slightly stronger and faster as Robotnik can swing it, however it is almost never used otherwise (A counterexample being if he's flipping through the air several times per second, which is a fatal attack if it hits.)

- Ranged

- Pistol: Somewhat strong but accurate, often used in between other weapon attacks.

- Grenades: These grow like fruits out of the handle, which Robotnik plucks and lobs at Sonic. He may hide this, holding one behind his back until Sonic comes close and throws an explosion in his face. They are near-deadly.

- Sub-machine guns: A second one is created so Robotnik can have two streams of rapid-fire at Sonic. Often used while moving at mid-range, but they aren't that accurate.

- Shotgun: Used at mid-range or at close-range if Sonic is trapped. Deadly to near-deadly depending on how much shot hits Sonic.

- Automatic rifle: Accurate only if Robotnik is still, very strong but not that fast. He can toss the Rifle, too, which can explode.

- Sniper Rifle: Extremely accurate and deadly, especially used at the longest of distances. Robotnik can no-scope, however, so Sonic should be very careful to avoid the bullets or hit him.

- Rocket Launcher: Somewhat slow, the splash damage from the explosions is quite wide. A direct hit is deadly. He can fire multiple rockets at once to surprise Sonic.

- Hand-to-hand: At very close range, Robotnik might disarm himself and fight bare-handed. These attacks are nearly all faster than using weapons, and some are even stronger, too. The same rules for fighting anyone else applies with him, too.

- Strikes: Each of these can be thrown at five levels, with the first being the weakest and fastest and the last being the strongest and slowest.

- Punches: Can be curved, thrown at angles, thrown both at once, telescoped or not, using different sides of the hand.

- Elbow jabs: Stronger than punches at lower levels, but require an even closer range.

- Kicks: Strongest at the highest level at full range, can also be thrown at angles, curves, using different sides of the foot.

- Knee jabs: Stronger than kicks at lower levels, but require movement and proximity.

- Headbutts: Often a surprise attack, rather strong but easiest to avoid

- Grapples: Used at the closest range or if Sonic is knocked down nearby to pin him, and then when he's stuck, Robotnik immediately crushes his neck.

- Items: Held in his pockets, he seemingly has a hidden inventory.

- Upgrades: Temporary for a few minutes, can be layered only 5 times. They simply change the machinery of his body and suit, indicated by a change in its hue.

- Defense: Increases his strength when he's stationary and especially when blocking, halves damage at each level. Blue.

- Offense: Increases his strength when moving and especially when attacking, increases damage by 50% each level. Red.

- Speed: Increases his speed overall, especially when evading, 50% each level. Yellow.

- Recovery: All of these take a short moment to begin, leaving Robotnik vulnerable although he will probably defend himself.

- Regeneration: Lasts for several minutes, heals a hit every 15 seconds, can be taken to reduce to a hit every 5, then 3, and 1, significantly reducing the overall duration each time. He has 20 of these.

- Small recovery: Recovers 2 hits. He has 30 of these.

- Medium recovery: Recovers 5 hits. He has 10 of these.

- Large recovery: Recovers 10 hits. He has 5 of these.

- Full recovery: He has 2 of these. Each takes 8 seconds to start.

- Other

- Cloaking: He is transparent for a minute, although his body slightly distorts the light. The energy from his attacks are visible and his sounds are audible too.

- Muffling: Of course he has an item to silence his movement and attacks, as well. Sonic should be very careful if he uses both.

- Energy boost: He is charged with Black Energy, and not only are all of his attacks more powerful, his body is dangerous to touch, too. This only lasts a few seconds, but he can use up to 5 of these at once, making almost everything he does besides move (and maybe even that if he just touches Sonic) as deadly.

- Miscellaneous Actions

-Proximity Explosive: Planted usually when Sonic doesn't notice, not that powerful but rather annoying.

- Boundary: Energy emitters which shoot at each other to alter the playing field or even trap Sonic.

- Death Capsule: This is very rare, but he might suddenly transform the air around Sonic into one of these machines, and if Sonic is caught inside, the air within is slowly turned into metal, literally squishing Sonic to molecular pieces.

No matter what Robotnik does, Sonic needs to find an opportunity to hit him while being in spin ball form, without being hit back whenever he can help it. This is very difficult at first, but once Sonic gets used to how Robotnik fights and the rhythms of all of his attacks (which Robotnik does modulate in both speed and form to try to prevent this), it becomes easier to see the holes. Likewise, Robotnik will get used to Sonic's rhythms and try to exploit his weaknesses, too. Should Sonic and Robotnik 'progress' in this way, the battle can be divided into a careful and intense beginning that slowly opens into a very long midgame of constant give and take to a somewhat chaotic and intense end as both almost know what each other will do before they even do it while having low stamina and health. Robotnik can withstand 100 hits without recovery, each point of health being carefully guarded. This reflects in all of his expressions. He's confident and energetic with full health, but with less than 10 hits his limbs are quivering and he has a concerned expression on his face.

.

.

When the final hit is dealt, he starts shaking and falls to one knee, looking at the ground, panting. He gives a few small laughs. He slowly looks up at Sonic, smiling. "I... I suppressed my memories. They're coming back... so vividly..." Sonic blinks. Robotnik stands up very slowly.

"I fought someone like you... I fought a hedgehog... a long time ago... when I was a child. He took an egg I had found on the ground, one that could hatch... and he... he threw it against the asphalt. He pushed me. Called me names. I loved eggs... I watched them in nature... incubated a few... I was fascinated by how life could come from such a simple shape... and then it was all over the ground, the bird almost... alive..."

He turns away, walks. "Don't attack me, Sonic... These memories... they..." He stops, facing away. Sonic tenses his fist. He doesn't like it.

"I've never felt feelings like this... in... so _long_. This... unreal... everything... I remember everything. I wanted... to help life. Wanted to understand and help it grow. I understood things so clearly, but no matter what I made... years... decades... researching... alone... my parents were killed, my entire species discriminated against, and all I had were my machines... I wanted to use them to help the world, to help people..."

"Bullshit," Sonic says. "Humans did nothing but fuck up Mobius from the start. You were all selfish bastards who dragged the whole world into your wars about petty ideologies. You were hated for a reason."

Robotnik doesn't turn or change his voice. "I was. I know. I hated my species, I hated my parents for dying. Even as a kid, wanting to put an egg back in its nest, I was hated, too... Even as I had the means to help the world, I was hated... Yet machines always obeyed me, they had no emotions. I decided. The world wouldn't listen to me. I had to overwhelm it with my genius, turn it all into a giant machine, and then... then I could end the hatred. So I forced my own mind to repress my memories, to focus on that goal..."

Sonic laughs.

Robotnik pauses. "All of my philosophy, all of my ideals... meaningless. My entire past squandered. Nothing at all, not a thing, means anything. It is all so absurdly chaotic and contradictory. I wanted to save the world; I wanted to control the world. I loved life, so I extinguished all of it. It's not right. It can't be like this. No... I understood, how could I be wrong? Was this really all predetermined?" He turns his head, looking askew at Sonic. "It's centered on you. It must be. That explains it."

"What are you ranting about now?" Sonic asks, mostly indifferent. He's gone through this before.

Robotnik turns completely to face Sonic. "Sonic, I enjoyed fighting you. Not just now, but every time, no, the entire time. My entire plan would have been meaningless without you. It couldn't have been done without you. You pushed through all of it... you succeeded, you made me succeed, and yet somehow by doing exactly what I wanted, without even knowing it, you made me fail. You beat me, somehow. That... That... I see myself... my old-no, my _young_ self, in you." Sonic looks at Robotnik funny, not really believing it but still feeling uneasy.

Robotnik says, "I like you, Sonic. I... I never wanted you to die. You're..." Sonic's breath is caught.

"You're better than me... I... look up to your infinite courage... even if it's not really yours... I could never say it, could never confront these feelings... fighting is as close as I could get to you. And..."

"Stop." Sonic says loudly, closing his eyes. Silence.

Sonic opens his eyes only to see that Robotnik is trembling violently now, his head tucked behind his hands. He can hear him mumbling very rapidly and incoherently. He does it for a while, twisting his body to and fro. The motions are jerky, uncannily so from the mechanical movements.

"I'll never forgive you, Robotnik. I don't care why you did what you did. You did it. It hurt me just like you got hurt, and I'm going to stop you like you tried to stop what happened to you. The difference is that you fucking eliminated the remainder of life on Mobius, so that when I win, I get to be alone until I die of starvation, or probably thirst. It ends here. It could have ended a long time ago, maybe from you, maybe from me killing you when I should have, the first time. I still punch myself for missing that chance. But it doesn't matter anymore. You're going to die, Robotnik." Robotnik, meanwhile, falls back down to his knees, shaking, his face in the shadows, his rambling, muffled voice mixed with sobs and sniffs.

Sonic starts walking towards him, unaffected. "I'm going to kill you."

Robotnik suddenly screams, "**AHHHHHHHHHHH**HHHHHH! It's a lie. No, it's meant to be, no that's deluded no it's a lie it's a lie it's _all_ a **lie** a **lie** a _**lie**_. It can't be like this. It can't be. Can't. It can't, I had it all planned out... all planned out... all planned out..."

Sonic stops, recognizing the pathetic display before him. He realizes that this is the only other living thing in the world, perhaps the universe. This thing. This enemy of his, this man who was his enemy from the start. This human.

"That's it... that's it..." Robotnik starts repeating, and suddenly stands up. "It's all planned out. He planned it all out. He wanted me like this. My plan was just a fragment of his... oh god... it's god, isn't it? God, huh?! Fucking smarter than me, huh?! Everything I've done is meaningless?!" He starts shouting at the ceiling. "Fuck you, god! You fucking mother fucker! Only you could make things turn out this way! No, no, no..."

He turns to the floor, repeating "no" over and over and over again. He has obviously forgotten about Sonic, who suddenly feels a surge of doubt rush through him, freeze his steps and makes his heart pound hard against his chest. Images of so many enemies flash through his mind. Tails. Tails with a gun. Zaga. Knuckles. So many... So many...

"It's all... it's all in my head... everything that makes sense is a delusion... every fact is a lie. Everything... no... no, no... it was all a waste... it's all... worthless! Meaningless! Auggh.. Argghhhh!..."

Just like when the entire world called out Sonic's name, the entire world now screams as Robotnik does, who stands, throwing his limbs out, tensing everything, his glasses thrown to the side, eyes pinched shut. The metal all around Sonic begins vibrating, and in the distance he notices all of the robots just dropping out of the sky. The storm, the ocean, the islands and even the sky start shaking, vibrating.

.

Sonic's shoes freeze, but Sonic jumps just as he feels them about to clench tightly. Just as he does, a net of energy-filled Nanoeggs in the air suddenly rush from behind, tangle around him and suddenly shock his entire body. Sonic is stunned at how he could drop his guard and the immense pain that suddenly filled him. Before he can even move, the net passes through, holding all of the Emeralds. Sonic drops to the floor, panting. He very quickly loses his rings (although he has hundreds to spare). He looks up at Robotnik, still screaming, and with wide eyes instantly tries to dash towards him. This all happens in 3 seconds, and Sonic is too late.

Robotnik is engulfed in rapidly, violently flashing lights, and the Super Egg-o-Matic around them suddenly vaporizes into a cloud of Nanoeggs. Bolts of plasma blast out from around him, with shock waves suddenly exploding out as well. The entire world is oscillating with an extreme, jerky frequency in-tune with the energy fluctuations. Sonic suddenly feels an immense growth of energy within Robotnik, a feeling that absolutely dwarfs the overwhelming power Sonic has.

The screaming itself is quieted in a din of the movement of the entire world, and the exploding lights are themselves dimmed by the flashing of sparks from grinding metal and changing wells of potential energy to the horizon. The storm twists and turns into the sky, forming gigantic spinning fans, discs, vortices and rings, rotating and moving at unearthly rates, before destroying themselves into chaotic wind movements that send balls of water exploding in the sky and thick branches of electricity literally creating arcs in the sky. The entire world seems to be thrown into its death throes.

Sonic tries to keep himself steady, but he is caught in an incredibly powerful jetstream that is being pulled around Robotnik. He just barely pushes himself out of it when he notices that a vortex of Nanoeggs is being sucked up from the surface miles below directly into Robotnik. "No, no, I'm running away, even now, now, I have to- I have to!" he thinks, and makes a mad dash towards him.

.

Explosions rocket out of his body, some containing an Emerald. He stops for a split-second, staring at the white ball of energy before him, curses, and then follows the fireballs, dipping inside of them, avoiding the shrapnel and grabbing each Emerald he can. Before he's even done, the air around Robotnik has significantly changed, filling up with glowing particles and gigantic vapor clouds. What little water was left below has evaporated, and even the metal ground is severely burnt. Looking down for a moment, Sonic is shocked to see that it's not just burnt. On the walls that somehow remained standing, there were pitch-black silhouettes of roboticized Mobians and Egg Robos. Patterned across the landscape were similar silhouettes exploded outwards.

Sonic looks around wildly, seeing not a single structure left on the ground but an almost impossibly flat surface forming a gargantuan crater directly below Robotnik. All of the robots that were around them just a few seconds ago, it seems, were completely annihilated. Sonic then understood. Somehow, he had survived it. It had happened only a few times in the distant past, he was told, before he was born, when the humans used weapons that were forever condemned and their technologies banned. He remembered hearing the sordidly grim tales of widespread devastation. Of no survivors. Those vivid descriptions, some told by men and women with distorted bodies filled with hard blobs of flesh permanently attached to machines. And yet, that was all a simplification, an minute comparison to this, to this which he didn't even notice.

Sonic realizes he just survived a nuclear explosion.

And upon that realization, he looks back at Robotnik and he sees his new form.

.

His body is muscular, what little flesh he can see. The majority of it is covered with a Nanoegg material so compressed that air, sound and even light to an extent curve around it. The suit has infinitesimally sharp angular blade-like shapes flying from a form with a continuous surface area so extremely wide yet so extremely tight that it could only be considered as sublime. That is, it is beautiful, and yet absolutely terrifying. Words cannot truly describe it, as despite its form the Nanoeggs are constantly moving and at a rate that seems to be a sizable fraction of the speed of light. And all the while, a spherical vortex constantly growing bigger sucks in Nanoeggs and Black Energy from all around them, compressing them further into Robotnik.

What is remaining of Robotnik's human flesh had been replaced by new machinery. His eyes are black tunnels with no light, his mustache replaced with two giant tongues of fire from a sharp muzzle-like nose. He is silent. Sonic is silent. All that is heard is the whoosh of air from the vortex.

And in another flash of a moment, Sonic finds himself rocketing through the air at hyper-fast speeds, the world spinning and flipping around him. He slows himself but it takes almost a quarter of a minute to get to a point where he realizes what directions he's actually spinning in. He manages to slow to a stop, and unwittingly takes a moment to rest as his eyes rapidly wag back and forth, the fluids in his head still spinning wildly. He suddenly feels very weak, and quickly drops to the ground where he lies against what could have been a house so long ago. He feels his energy just disappear from his body, and he transforms back to normal Sonic.

This is very disturbing. Sonic still has hundreds of rings. Robotnik... de-transformed him.

He gets up and looks around. He doesn't recognize it at all, of course. Everything is silent here, and unmoving. Even the lights that were once spread across all Nanoegg roboticized structures are all extinguished. But the clouds are gone. The air is somehow fresh. He feels warmth on his skin, his untransformed skin. He looks up at the blue sky, and shadows his eyes from the sun which still shines.

.

.

**SUPER ROBOTNIK**

.

Sonic must now fly through the entire roboticized world of Mobius trying to find Robotnik. The energy that he has accumulated in the last battle sticks with him for this one, and likewise his speed can reach the same level. In only a few minutes he picks up a trail, one of complete devastation. The inactive mechanical world becomes increasingly scarred and torn the closer he gets to him. At his speed, it doesn't take long until he's in his sights.

As Robotnik flies through the world, he absorbs both Nanoeggs and Black Energy. While he powers up, he also fires powerful blasts at the planet, ripping it apart in ever-larger explosions. Sonic is ignored until he attacks him first.

_For a first-time player, this is the most difficult part of the entire game._

_._

Super Robotnik is very, incredibly, extremely deadly because of the combined effect from four different factors:

1. his intellect,

2. his transforming, regenerating Nanoegg armor,

3. his immense reservoir of Black Energy,

4. and his unstoppable fury.

He plays no games and does not respond to Sonic's movements any more than is needed to optimize his death. This is advantageous only insofar as Robotnik is not concerned about his own health or defense.

His armor is extremely versatile and durable, and he can nearly instantly shape-shift to suit his purposes. These can be as small as the weapons he was just using, to creating gigantic mecha or airships loaded with hundreds if not thousands of such weapons all over it. He can pull and push the ground and sky to manipulate Sonic's movement if not trap him outright. He may use methods of attack he used previously (_throughout this game and previous games_), or improvise new ones on the spot. He can spawn every single enemy that has appeared since, including bosses even like Egg Hunter or Neo-Mechanix. Although Robotnik waits for nothing now, and if they are in his way, he'll destroy them without a thought.

.

All of his attacks are charged with Black Energy, and as he absorbs more it will become more concentrated until it's fatal to Sonic.

- He often uses planes and spaces completely filled with Black Energy,

- in addition to simply radiating it from his body.

- He also frequently uses explosions of energy, often clustered or layered in each other.

- Perhaps most startling is a new ability to use his energy absorption on Sonic, but he uses the energy in just as many ways as he his armor.

- Finally, and especially as he gets more energy, he may spike his output overall to increase his strength, speed and so on, which will cause Sonic to react by increasing his Hyper, and this may even happen several times once after another. Robotnik will never slow down and actually speed up when this happens, although anything outside of his direct control such as the environment or other robots will move much slower.

.

His power is constantly growing and his attacks rip apart Mobius into ever-larger pieces. Eventually, it reaches planetary proportions, and at this point the battle becomes much more grim and challenging. He may exploit the magnetic fields to carry the Nanoeggs from the opposite side of the world, or he might just cause an entire continent's worth of land to splinter towards Sonic.

At this point in the fight, Sonic has a time limit until Robotnik completely annihilates the world and both of them on it. Sonic might notice that a strand of Nanoeggs is twisting from the world out into space towards the moon. What is happening is that they slowly are wrapping around it and are pulling the giant rock directly towards the surface, in order to essentially liquify all that's left and scatter the remains throughout space. Even though both Sonic and Robotnik are technically invincible, when the two masses collide they will die. The time limit is 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, Robotnik splits the world open through the prime meridian and flies directly towards to the core. Sonic has no choice but to follow, watching as all that was left of the world gets pulled into its molten center, itself still somehow roboticized. There, Robotnik's structures are less free-form or free-moving and much more structured to take advantage of the contained space, pressure and temperature. His absorption of energy and metal is much slower than before, but still occurs at a constant rate.

Sonic can barely keep himself alive in this battle, especially near the end, much less plow through Robotnik's armor and hit his true body. Even if he did, Robotnik can withstand 250 hits. This essentially becomes impossible when the energy radiating from his body reaches the level of concentration that can kill Sonic, despite his own absorption (occurring at a much, much slower rate). If Sonic somehow survives to 2 minutes before collision, Robotnik's radiating energy will become large enough that Sonic has no choice but to fly _away_ from him or else die.

.

With half a minute left, the moon is caught in Mobius' gravity field and its own gravity causes extreme tidal forces to send the world into transverse vibrations. Just as this starts to happen, all of the Nanoeggs in the world just suddenly freeze into their solid structures and become brittle. The planet thus starts to shatter as the moon comes in closer and closer. Robotnik is affected as well, however his energy suddenly gets a humongous increase.

Sonic must dash and break through the radius of Mobius at max speed. Although he hasn't noticed it in the very heavy core, his max speed has increased several _times_. Once he breaches the surface of Mobius he is then immediately greeted with the face of the moon.

In order to survive and protect the planet of Mobius, Sonic must dash directly at the moon and slam into it in spinball form. He cuts right through it, and before he even goes halfway through the moon cracks and starts to explode.

Mobius, fractured, is now bombarded by thousands of chunks of moon rock, tearing off large areas of crust and mantle in the most extreme cases but keeping the planet relatively intact otherwise due to the Nanoeggs' regeneration. Robotnik, however, is unphased and has followed Sonic the entire time while accelerating. However, his energy has dissipated in this mad dash, and finally they can fight on somewhat equal terms up in the disrupted mesosphere.

.

Robotnik will use many Black Energy projectiles and charged attacks, but for the most part he fights conventionally. His speed and strength are still extremely high, but there is also an extremely slim margin of error he makes that is occasionally exacerbated by his silent anger. Sonic can fly back to Mobius or into space, but wherever he goes Robotnik will follow. His only way out is to land all 250 hits.

.

.

.

When that happens, Robotnik loses his transformation, and if he is in the air he'll stop and fall. He drops to the ground, wherever it is. He is motionless, but he speaks.

"I must have really wanted it this way... I must have planned it from even before, before I played with machines... never wanted to live alone... I outsmarted myself."

Sonic gains his breath and sits down. He stares at Robotnik intently, silently judging him.

"There was always a greater power in you, Sonic. I knew it all along. I know about the whole thing, and how this all happened just proved it. I could have never won. It's not impossible, it's completely unthinkable. It's fantasy. A game. You beat me again and again and yet I always thought my plans weren't deep enough... but it wasn't me... no... there's no way you could have survived this far if it weren't for that power... when I tried to shoot you, drown you... that voice... it wasn't mine."

Sonic looks at Robotnik's twisted, mechanical head, turned away, unable to look Sonic in his cold, unyielding eyes. Sonic sees him crying.

"I could have spent all of that time, all of that energy and all of those resources... helping the world. Even if I was hated, even if nobody accepted it... maybe... somebody would. There's no justification. All rationalization. I was selfish... I'm smart, the smartest, so what? I was deluded... I was... insane... oh god, what madness have I wrought... even now, you saved the world... I... I'm..."

He turns, pushes himself onto his knees and looks directly at Sonic. He then bows deeply to the ground. "Sonic, everything... I apologize for everything! I... I'll do anything... everything... to bring it all back. I could design a deroboticization machine, reform Mobius and the moon... There's still millions of people who could come back... I would destroy all of my weapons... I would build all the infrastructure... but I'd let you manage it all... I'd just build, repair, I'd be the world's engineer... I'll do anything... I'll do anything, oh god, Sonic, I'm so sorry! This is all unreal... a nightmare..."

Sonic stands up, and Robotnik looks up to him suddenly.

The world is dead, not a single piece of nature remaining asides from the severely reduced atmosphere, gravitational and magnetic fields of the fractured planet. Sonic stares at Robotnik, at his face, into his eye that was always obscured by those glasses. He could only think of every scoff, every scorn, everything he's done, every crime and roboticization and murder, and of every chance, every missed chance, every missed chance, every missed chance, every missed chance!

Sonic kneeled down before Robotnik, and tucked into a spinball. He charged a spindash. He charged it to its limit. Robotnik, is still. Motionless. Paralyzed, on all fours, looking up.

Flesh, blood, metal and air all disappear before Sonic. He feels nothing.


	11. Sonic Ballistic, Part 10

Part 10

_This is the final part of Sonic Ballistic. It can only be played if the player managed to acquire all 25 pieces of the White Emerald which are hidden in various Acts throughout Parts 1 through 9__, in places that require a level of skill in platforming or battle that are more suitable for a second play-throug_h. 

_Now that the player finished Part 9, the save file in use is 'unlocked' and the player can choose any Act or Boss in any Zone in the entire game **except** for PART 10. The player will play forward through the game from whichever Act or Boss is selected, as in Sonic 3. The player can also pause and return to the save screen at any time, instead of having to reset. _

_The game saves when the player completes the White Emerald. The aforementioned 'level select' will be re-locked and the player must finish Part 10 before 'level select' is unlocked for all Parts, 1 through 10, with the White Emerald in effect for every level._

_When Sonic collects the final 25th piece of the White Emerald, there is a quick cutscene wherever he is, of the pieces spinning into one solid form. The Emerald flashes with a brilliance that temporarily blinds Sonic for a few seconds, but when his vision returns, he sees the whole world in new light. Quite literally, all types of energy are now visible through matter: mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical, and of course Chaos energy and Black energy, too. To the player, these energies are visible as streams of color separate from the objects on screen which yet manifest within them, making many objects, especially enemies, glow with the color respective to the type of energy. _

_This is very confusing at first, and actually gives little help in this Part, Part 10. But on a re-playthrough or 'New Game +' through the first 9 Parts, it is incredibly useful. Sonic can learn how the different energies flow and how they affect solid matter such as the levels, enemies and bosses. For example, all but the fastest of enemy attacks will become obvious seconds before they're even started. More significantly, Sonic can now feel where Black Stones (Black energy) are and where Power Rings (Chaos energy) are near him, no matter which Act he is in. He can accumulate enough Black Stones to go Hyper whenever he chooses in the game, even on Acts before he even got the Black Emerald! For Part 10, the White Emerald's greatest use is in allowing Ultra Sonic to find Black Stones to reinforce his Hyper power._

_._

Sonic flies low to the ruined earth, weaving through fallen buildings and split chasms. It's past noon. He wanders aimlessly, his thoughts alternately blank or racing with charged emotions. He decides to land and try to calm himself down. Looking over a precipice at a gigantic gash in the land, with giant blocks of machinery slowly spinning in the air, he returns to his normal form.

As he does, he is shocked by intense pain shooting through his limbs and then stabbing into his body. He groans as his muscles and head ache severely and acutely, but it slowly diminishes in pulses. He is suddenly reminded of how the Nanoeggs stopped moving, and then how he defeated Mechanix. "It's like an addiction to power..." Sonic thinks. "My body has absorbed so much damage and I survived only because I had that Black Energy. I would have died a long time ago without it, but if I keep on using it, maybe I'll die anyway. Even if I'm always transformed, my body can't stand that pressure."

He watches a floating island of metal drift across the sky, only to get knocked in a different direction by another one. "This Emerald... it's evil... it changed the way I think. I can't fight without it. Soon, maybe I can't even live without it. All I can think of now is... how to use this new power I have."

Sonic reflects on his entire journey, and strangely, he isn't startled by this conclusion: "Every enemy that I targeted... I defeated. Most of them... I killed. I killed them... They're dead. How am I any different from the Zexesh, Zaga, Mechanix or even Robotnik? I've become..."

Sonic then takes out the Black Emerald and looks at it. His reflection is fragmented, distorted and blurred. "All of them... they all had this. This! This damn emerald... this _power_... it's a parasite, sucking away life after life! Without it, there would be no Emeralds, and nobody would use them... so much suffering would have never happened... There are other worlds, maybe I can save them if I eliminate all of the Black Energy... and finally destroy this Emerald. Like the Chaos Emeralds are connected to the Special Zone, this Black Emerald must be connected to... the Void. Yes, that's it! That has to be the source, or at least from there I could find the real source. I remember... a long time ago, reading that report in the Severn Building lab... all of the Black Stones are connected. I can feel that... There must be a way..." And he looks intently into the Black Emerald, using the power of the White to sense where the energy is flowing. He looks off into a certain direction at once.

"Over there. There's a humongous Black Stone over there... it's... it's almost a hundred times stronger than this Emerald... that doesn't make any sense... how could I have never felt it before?" Sonic is about to transform to fly, but he pauses, considering his new mission, but reluctantly decides to become Ultra Sonic again, at least until this is all over.

As he gets closer, he notices the familiarity of the surface's topography. Interlocking towers and roadways appear before him, and at once he recognizes it as Nexus. The energy source he senses is below the very center of the city, actually, far below where the Infinity Tower once was. He drops by the edge of the center, looking into the ruins, when he hears something moving. He quickly scans his surroundings and notes a bright thermal signature fast approaching from the "rooftops". He prepares himself, although wondering what it could possibly be, when the figure leaps off a nearby building onto the collapsed highway Sonic stands on.

"Jeir?!" Sonic says, completely perplexed. It is indeed Jeir, who is unroboticized!

"I told you we'd meet again, Sonic! Haha! Although to be honest, I lost all hope once that goo started spreading everywhere!" he says quite excitedly, almost bouncing on the spot.

"There's no way... how... how are you not roboticized?!" Sonic asks, still stunned.

"Is that what it's called? Well, before it even happened people were already panicking. Well- you know why. I was out here on the streets, too, fighting the pro-Zexesh. It was already bloody, and then New Chaos was summoned. Almost everyone then knew we were all fucked. The fighting stopped for the most part. A lot of people ran, some tried to get back to the capsules although nobody knew how to use them. I knew it was useless, so I got up on top of one of the skyscrapers to at least have a good view of the end. I saw Zaga and you go into it... I saw only you come out... News was just getting out that we were all safe, the revolution was successful, that we could finally rebuild peacefully.

"Then the... roboticization? That happened. It happened so quickly. Most places were covered from both top and bottom but my area happened to be one of the few far enough away that the top was the last to go. That goo washed over everything... like a tsunami. It started going up the walls... I had no choice but to jump. I managed to land just after the roboticization ended. I was left the same, but everyone... everything else... I was hunted down... I didn't want to leave Nexus, but some of the strongest warriors were now out to get me. I didn't want to fight them. I didn't want to... destroy them..."

Jeir stopped, caught up in his own reflections. Sonic understood all too well, and stayed silent. He respected his emotions, despite not feeling any empathy at all. He blamed the Black Emerald for sucking that away from him.

"I was mostly worried about food and water. If everything was roboticized, I was doomed. I managed to secure a position in another building, safe but slowly losing energy... then the power everywhere just turned off. It was eerie but I didn't question it anymore. I waited a bit, then explored the city. People I knew were now just... just unresponsive dolls. I wondered if I had really died... and this was Hell...

"Finally, I saw you. I saw you and... that robot monster you fought. Zipping through the air, your sonic booms and the ensuing shattering of almost everything weak and brittle around me. I knew that we'd meet up soon after that."

Sonic, unable to think of anything to add, just asks suddenly, "What's underneath the Infinity Tower?"

Jeir smiles. "You just can't give up, can you? No, I figured you'd ask that. Those four pyramid seals lost their power when they got roboticized... they could no longer contain the Black Energy deep below. I didn't know what was down there, myself, until I explored the ruins around here. Some of our own machinery and computers were left with the same data. I was wondering it myself. Down there...

"It is the most closely guarded secret of the Zexesh, and I mean the entire history of them including the New Zexesh. Only a select few even knows it exists. It's called The Nadir, and it is as deep below the earth as The Zenith was above it. Only the Zexesh knew what was actually in it... but from what I could gather, it is not just the source of their power but the source of our entire civilization itself. Or something like that."

"I sense... an enormous presence of Black Energy. It 's as if tens of Black Emeralds were put into one thing. I... need to go there," Sonic says, and starts walking past Jeir towards the ruins ahead.

Jeir turns and shouts out, "Wait! _Wait!_ Don't just... leave me! Sonic!"

Sonic stops at hearing his own name. He turns his head and looks at Jeir. He is crying, running towards him, all composure lost. That is all Sonic sees, and he feels nothing one way or the other. He knows that he should be feeling, but... he just doesn't. And that fact doesn't bother him... not anymore... Again, he thinks of the Black Emerald's influence... and then he realizes he is seeking even more power... even if it is to destroy it. And that doesn't bother him, either. Rather, he thinks... it's inevitable.

After thinking all that, Jeir had moved only four steps. Sonic looks away, and he senses that Jeir has stopped. "Sonic is dead. You were talking to yourself..." he says.

After that, and with no more waiting, he runs towards the Infinity Tower, navigating the fallen corridors down to where Ominous Ore was, and indeed sees a hole between the four pyramids, now splintered. He approaches the edge and looks over. The hole is just as wide as the tower, with smooth walls somehow unroboticized, descending into pitch black.

Sonic jumps in.

**The Nadir** [Act 1] (10/44)

_Sonic cannot transform here!_

Sonic falls for quite a long time in darkness before he is greeted by rings of dim, cool-color lights on the walls. Suddenly, floating towers of spikes rush by him and he must fall around them to avoid taking any damage, as he only has the rings he came with. The spikes soon cover the walls, too, and he must carefully wall-jump on what little safe areas he can to direct himself through.

After that introduction, he lands in a small chamber at the bottom of the vast hole. The walls are made of giant slabs of dark stone, almost completely bare except for mythological symbols that appear rather scarcely, resembling the prehistoric designs in the cave in the Mystic Mountains. The place is covered in multiple layers of shadow from small lamps that flicker with undying flames of blue, green or purple. The spaces following are all about this size, with the connecting antechambers being alternately just as wide or extremely tight, only slightly bigger than Sonic.

The level consists mainly of rooms filled with spikes covering abstract structures seemingly designed only for someone, like Sonic, to navigate through using extremely precise platforming. Sonic must follow certain rhythms of running, rolling, jumping and wall-jumping that might be then syncopated. The challenges require an increasing amount of concentration with a decreasing margin of error, and as he nears the end he has less and less room to breathe. Fortunately, nothing moves, there are no enemies and his speed doesn't matter except to give him momentum. There is just pure platforming in this dark dungeon.

.

Once he clears the final room, he reaches an incredibly massive chamber, filled with hundreds of masterful sculptures, scrolls, paintings, and so much more as to be indescribable except that they all reflect the same style. Yet Sonic's eyes are drawn to the center of the room, for there, wider than the Infinity Tower, is a humongous Black Stone, vaguely reflecting the many lights and objects in the room which Sonic notices from the many angles of reflection in that stone are organized into many deep, embedded layers of patterns. He approaches the Stone, his entire body riding the sensation of its energies. He realizes that the power he felt only came from a few extremely powerful rays which managed to escape the stone, the Nadir, and the distance to the surface. The actual energy of the Stone itself is so incredibly immense that it cannot escape it, drawn to itself almost as if it had its own gravity. Indeed, Sonic, too, felt himself pulled towards it.

"Hello," Sonic hears, and whips around, surprised. What he sees is even more surprising.

It's an echidna, a naked one perhaps twice his height but very skinny. His skin is jet black, somehow glowing with a strange, indescribable light that doesn't match any color he recognized. Perhaps what disturbed Sonic the most is the pits where his eyes would normally be.

"You do not need to explain yourself. My body may be trapped in this room but I have sensed your coming for a long time now. I am well aware of all the events that has happened on the surface. If you had not stopped the human, even I, too, would have died," he says. His voice seems to resonate within Sonic's mind, almost like his own thoughts. It has a varied rhythm and yet no tone. Sonic tries to feel his energies, and yet they were completely vacant. Even the walls, no, even the _air_ has a sliver of energy. He simply defied his senses.

"There is a reason for that," the echidna says. Sonic is wide-eyed and takes a step back. "Come, do not fear me. I have been alone for many millenia, and I greatly desire, more than anything, to talk to someone. I will explain myself, I will explain the Black Asteroid, and I know – yes, I know – how you can rid not just this world but all worlds of the Void. I beseech you to be at peace with me."

Sonic is hesitant, and yet he feels like he can trust the man. Thinking about it briefly, he realizes his immediate reaction to this stranger was almost to fight... to kill him. For that, without another thought, he very suddenly drops to the floor cross-legged. The echidna follows suit albeit at a more measured pace.

"I am Zexa," he says. "I am no god."

"That's hard to believe," Sonic comments. "Since you should have died many thousands of years ago."

"You should have died many thousands of _times_ these past few **days**," Zexa replies. Seeing Sonic think, he continues, "I have observed the world ever since I have been imprisoned here, and I have watched you, especially. I can sense the movement of energy from the winds of the sun to the cells in your body. Quite simply, like you and many others, by sinking my body into the maelstrom of the Void's dark energies, I have been transformed beyond a normal living being and so acquired an almost invincible stamina and omniscient perception of flow."

"Wait," Sonic says. "This is a prison? But you're Zexa... and then, there's this humongous Black Stone. How could you not break out?"

"I voluntarily chose to isolate myself here, and my followers wanted my influence. I built this dungeon out of the deep cave I once called my home and I sealed the entrance. I let them pervert the reasons behind my unification of our species, to build their institutions of power and propaganda, while I stayed here, meditating on my unforgivable crime for eternity, to never touch the surface or its people again."

"I don't understand," Sonic says.

"But you do, Sonic, you very much understand although in a different way. I shall explain my story from the start, briefly as I can," Zexa replies. He pauses, takes a long, deep breath, and pauses again.

"When I was a child, the world was infinite in scale and complexity. There were only a few peoples who knew themselves. In my area, it was the echidnas, the wolves and your ancestors the hedgehogs. Yet all of us were fragmented apart in different clans and tribes, fighting our own kind over food and land. We did not know much. Everything we could not understand, we believed was alive or affected by something that was. The sky was our father, the earth our mother, and so on. Life was simple, yet hard. Death was normal, and our elders were thus revered for knowing life and how to live so well."

"I had survived - my seventh year, as is now figured – when a great dearth struck the land. Prey had vanished. Our enemies grew hungry and desired our flesh, and we theirs. In one night, my village was burnt and everyone I knew were eaten, if they had been killed or not. It was honorable to die fighting, but I was young and scared. I ran."

"I was not an adult, had not heard many of the elders' stories or lessons. I had to learn the ways of the world alone, and I gained many scars. My situation was not singular. I met many like me, who had no tribes. We did not speak. We fought. I killed them, many younger than me. I ate them. I was still very hungry."

"One day. It was like the day before, no clouds, no rain, very hot. I saw a circular hole in the ground. This one. The walls were perfectly smooth, the darkness pure. I believed that the gods had made it. I jumped. Haha," Zexa suddenly chuckles.

"Would it be any other hole, the earth would have snapped my body and I would die very painfully and slowly. But at the bottom, as you see, was this, the Black Asteroid. Yes, it was here before the Black Stones rained, and that is an important point of which I will return to later... Before I even landed on it, I was... I..." He pauses. "Even now, I cannot describe it. It was similar to how you must have felt time slow down as you experienced radiated Black Energy, except thousands of times more intense, in my case. I make no exaggeration when I state that experience felt many times longer than the entirety of the time I spent in here since. The universe seemed to fill my mind at once, and very soon I no longer believed in gods or magic... no, I not only knew of how causes made effects... I experienced it, for everything, each time. Even then, I still had much to learn, for I thought that I had become the god, the master of all things."

"I was acutely aware of the suffering of my people, and at once – well, I sealed this pit first - I set out to end it. I came to individuals, one by one. My appearance had changed to this, and those that did not automatically bow before me, soon found that they could not so much as hurt me. I taught them, as slowly as I could, about the truth, while the numbers of my followers greatly expanded. I preached forgiveness and love, I taught them new ways to find food, to make shelter, to do many, many things. I sought out more than the echidnas, I sought out the people and the animals of the entire world. I was truly deluded, for I had sought to resolve all of the problems of the world once and for all."

"What's wrong with that?" Sonic suddenly interrupts.

"It is impossible for one man to save the world," Zexa declares resolutely. "I tried to transfer what I knew from my experience to the people through an experience completely different, one that I controlled, that I tried to make like mine. I assumed that if they had even a glimpse of the truth, they would become gods like me, and yet I refused to even consider bringing them to the Meteor because I was scared they would have a different experience, perhaps would even try to kill me... Not to mention that I desired change to happen so quickly, denying the materialism inherent in their minds... and indeed, my own."

"I made many... countless mistakes then. One of the more significant ones was centralizing decision making to myself. I did not teach them to teach themselves. I allowed myself to be worshiped. I created rituals complete with meaning to me, but which only restricted the motions of the people. I made laws that I could follow easily, but they did not quite understand. I controlled them... a benevolent authoritarian. I created civilization, and very soon, there were others who thought they knew things I did not, who wanted to change it, good, but only into their own perspective like me, bad... And within a few generations, there were those who did not know the many whys but still did the many hows... there were those who wanted to be gods just to be gods... I knew... I knew of the cycle... the cycle of all things... but I thought I broke it, I thought I was above it. All too soon, I had seen what I had done... I knew... I had acted too soon and too fast. Never once did I think I could be wrong... not until it was too late. I exiled myself here at once, I wouldn't even stop the Zexesh, so-called, who demanded that only echidnas could be rightfully called Zexakal. I tried to reproduce that single experience, and with one repetition, another follows, distorted through mind and time into the catastrophes that defined the history of Mobius. It is fit that my followers decided to built their own home above mine."

"You know... yes, you must know that I had to clean up your fucking mess. I could have been born in a utopia, but instead I end up just barely keeping the planet from being completely destroyed. You could leave this place at any time, you could have stopped any of it from happening, Mechanix, Robotnik, the Zexesh..." Sonic says.

"You are short-sighted, Sonic. They are incidents of the greater cycle, incidents which you have negated only for more incidents to appear. Actions are not positive and negative, one which cancels the other and leave nothing. Every action radiates outwards, affecting everything, making more actions, which soon spur the first action again. I do not expect you to understand yet, but you'll remember what I'm saying soon enough."

Sonic stands up. "I don't care about your opinions. In fact, I'm starting to get bored of talking to you. I didn't come here to listen to your rants. You call this the Black Asteroid, right? So it came from space, like the Black Stones? And you say the energy is from the Void. Explain all of this, because I intend to destroy whatever is the source of it all."

Zexa doesn't change his expression or tone, as if he was expecting the reaction. "This pit is unnaturally shaped precisely because this Asteroid was intentionally landed here. As you are aware, the Stones are connected to each other, and pull each other. The Asteroid was a beacon, so to speak, detached from a meteor made out of the stone that flies through the cosmos. It was drawn near here and when passing, rained the Black Stones."

"I have been to the Void as you have, but... I do not understand it. It captures moments of the past, somehow, and seems to be devouring the Special Zone, as you must have saw. It is a strange place... it shouldn't exist. The density of energy on the meteor alone is too high even for me. Even after so long, I still do not know the origin of either the meteor or the Void, if there even is one. All I can understand... is that I cannot understand it. The source of the Void, of its energies, of the meteor...it is something far beyond the reality we comprehend."

Sonic turns to the Asteroid. "Then you can get there from here, right? Are you saying you made a portal?"

Zexa still looks at Sonic. "It will never end, Sonic. You, too, are caught in a cycle, finding new targets to destroy, thinking it will solve everything. It will not."

Sonic says, "Make a portal to that meteor, and when I go through it, destroy this thing."

Zexa says, "You are not invincible, Sonic. This is completely diff-"

Sonic turns his head, looking Zexa straight in the eyes. "I know. I'm not scared of death, or of forces beyond my control. I will fight, as long as I can fight. I could die, I could stop, but who else can do what I can, and why should they suffer if I can? Unlike you, I use my power for good. I am no coward."

Zexa stands up. "You are deluded, and you **will** die. You will not save anyone by dying, and you have not saved anyone by fighting. You are stubborn and naïve. You cannot save the world by yourself."

"I beg to differ," Sonic says.

"I said **the** world. Not **your** world. No," Zexa says suddenly, and turns his head away. He looks back at Sonic, and then walks past him to the Asteroid. "No, I'll let you do it. I was going to fight you, kill you if you would be as stubborn as you are, but..." He puts his hands to the stone, and it suddenly flashes with brilliant light.

"I would have won," Sonic says triumphantly, although with a flat tone.

"No," Zexa says. A strange vortex appears in front of him, seemingly bending space into something ineffably complex and yet simply transparent. "I continue to repeat my own cycle, thinking I can transmit my experience to you, to anyone. You will never understand precisely what I understand; you must understand what you shall understand on your own."

He pulls the vortex open to his full wingspan, and then steps back. He looks at Sonic, who walks quickly towards it. Right before he enters, Zexa grabs him by the shoulder and Sonic turns around with a furrowed brow, tense and about to strike. Zexa lets go. "Once I destroy the Black Asteroid, you will never be able to return. It may not seem like it, but almost everyone you have met, including your friends... they are all still alive on the surface somewhere. Will you really abandon them for this... ideal?"

Sonic looks away and is quiet, reflecting.

After a few minutes, he turns slowly to Zexa, with a constrained expression. "I can't... I can't stop... even though... even..." Just as he finishes that last word, at once, Zexa realizes why. Not just why Sonic said what he said, but he realizes why everything, absolutely everything has happened. To Zexa, it changes everything, and not even his initial transformation held a candle to this.

At that very exact, identical moment, Sonic walks into the portal.

.

**Entropy** [Act 1] (10/45)

Sonic is teleported into thin air, and in a brief moment he must move over to a ledge nearby, or fall away from the meteor (hereby referred to as Entropy) and die. On the ledge he gets his bearings. He then notices that just as he arrived, he transformed to Ultra Sonic despite not intending to do it. He also notices that there is a gravity of sorts, and in addition, he seemingly cannot fly anymore.

The surface of the ledge is similar to the surface of all of the mass around him. It can be rough, rocky and opaque like any normal Black Stone, but there are small outcroppings and even large areas of translucent, flatter crystals, namely like Black Crystals, Shards and the Emerald. They range in hue all around the spectrum, although the values are all significantly dark. There doesn't seem to be anything else besides the rock.

The space surrounding it is the familiar black with flashing white-lightning background of the Void, although now many other colors flash in different shapes for just as briefly, such as flicking blue dots, radiating red rings and so on. Occasionally, this background seems to fade away somehow, revealing long lines of stars and galaxies rushing by behind a curtain of meteor dust.

Sonic is currently at the bottom of Entropy. He must use wall-jumping to leap off of the giant stalactites to span large gaps and to reach other stalactites. If they are close enough, he can wall-jump between them to make more progress vertically. There are very few ledges to rest on. Instead, most of the horizontal distance is covered by floating, spinning chunks of Entropy which he must carefully jump on and off of to navigate the wide spaces with no bottom. What makes this difficult is the immense scale of Entropy, which necessitates that Sonic builds up his speed so that he can clear the many massive gaps. Obviously, this requires a great deal of concentration, but his experience with precise and fast platforming will help him greatly here. He may need to spin ball through material in order to keep his momentum.

Eventually, he passes the precipitous bottom and reaches stable, flat ground above it.

.

[Act 2]

The surface is dominated by the rougher mineral here. Sonic looks up and sees that the majority of Entropy still stands far above him. He continues.

Occasionally, Sonic runs across a mostly crystalline portion which is almost perfectly flat, changing angles and occasionally having spires he can break through. However, most of the surface is very rough and erratic, changing direction almost all of the time, being filled with obstructions and sometimes splitting open into humongous chasms. In those and in many of the larger mounds of stone are tunnels, mostly smooth which usually stay close to the surface. Sonic has relatively little concern for danger here, and his objective is to simply continue his ascent. Eventually, he must climb one of the many mountains which all join together up into the central mass of the meteor. The surface becomes almost entirely crystalline and without being able to fly, he has no choice but to stick to the tunnels.

.

[Act 3]

The tunnels lead into wider caverns which themselves connect to the gargantuan hollow spaces within Entropy. It is difficult to describe, as there are surfaces going every which way in seemingly random fashion.

This is more difficult than the two previous areas as although he has no threat of falling off, progressing through the chaotic, almost sponge-like interior requires a lot of speed, precise movement and furthermore planning in order to bridge the horizontal and vertical gaps. Although Sonic hasn't noticed it happening before, the extreme concentration of Black Energy has been enhancing his abilities and perception at a steady rate. Here, it increases in explosions, and yet the space of Entropy seems to match him with increasingly difficult areas to pass.

In addition, the Black Energy seems to manifest into indescribable forms that phase in and out of existence. Some are harmless while others explode or bolt towards Sonic. Some even seem to predict his movements to attack him, as if sentient. There is no way to harm them.

There are even a few areas which simply transform into completely different places, including many areas on Mobius, but also the Fallen World and many other worlds as well. They are filled with life and even people although none recognize Sonic. These individual memories of place and time fade away rather quickly. They only occur here.

As he ascends, the material of Entropy gradually darkens. Eventually, Sonic escapes the insides and reaches the top of the giant mountain. And yet, there is still much more of the meteor to navigate.

.

[Act 4]

_This __**is**__ the most difficult level in the entire game._

The surface is extremely varied here, having flat fields, gigantic vertical spires holding up the rest of Entropy above, and many floating islands of rock and crystal. Sonic must move faster than ever to span the gaps here, and he must often break through the material to move on. In fact, in several areas his progress is blocked unless he destroys some gigantic piece of Entropy, so as to clear the way or simply make stuff fall and create more platforms for him. Perhaps most difficult to consider is that here, the very surfaces themselves start to move at an increasing rate, sliding past each other, changing shape, breaking and reforming, and so on.

The Black Energy is ever increasing in concentration, and it may take on networked or swarm-like forms, often displaying an increasing degree of intelligence. Sonic is also affected by it, and so much as spin dashing can cause shock waves of energy now. His mind starts to fluctuate, too, and his perception of color, size, shape, time and space oscillates in ever greater amplitudes away from what he originally considered as normal. The energy is everywhere, and Sonic must be careful as much of it can harm him and some volumes of it can even kill him.

Sonic clearly notices that the energy is radiating out from the very top of Entropy, and as he gets closer and closer he finds it harder and harder to reach it. Right before it, it is no exaggeration to say that essentially everything, including the material itself, tries to kill him. Giant boulders will try to crush him, large volumes and flows of energy go directly at him, even his own mind seems to betray him by making everything hard to ascertain.

Disturbingly, when Sonic finally thinks he has reached the top, it turns out that there is another gigantic space separating him from the peak. Despite that, he regain his ability to fly, which he will need to navigate the extremely dangerous area ahead. He starts to hallucinate in several ways at once, with open-eyed visuals, alterations to his peripheral vision, changes in sound and space and even his own feeling of movement. Not to mention that not only is everything trying to kill him now, everything works together to kill him. To survive, Sonic needs pure speed, pure concentration, pure precision to execute the long patterns of running, rolling, spindashing, jumping, spindash jumping, wall-jumping, flying and air-spindashing without getting touched by any of the thousands of dangers.

This time, when Sonic reaches the top, nothing attacks him anymore and the ground is stable. He sees the peak right before him.

.

[Act 5]

The ground is mostly flat, pitch black, its texture obscured. A few crystals, this time also completely black, stand out. Sonic's hallucinations are increasing intensely in strength, psychedelic wavyness, moments of time cut apart from flanging, people and places appearing and disappearing in instants. Energy flows out wave after wave, seemingly bending reality itself. It becomes an increasingly long journey as he approaches the summit.

.

There, he sees a small, glowing white orb with a diameter of about two fists. It hovers still, at the same height as Sonic. Just as he notices it, he realizes that his hallucinations suddenly stopped. Suddenly, he hears a voice inside his head. For some reason, the sound defies his comprehension, slipping out of any concept he can use to pin it down, and yet the words and meaning are abundantly clear.

"You found me," it says.

"Who is this?" Sonic asks.

"You can just think. I am telepathic," it states.

"Answer my question," Sonic thinks.

"'Who' is so vague. And why do you care? You intend to destroy me anyway."

"I don't, not unless you control this meteor."

"Well, I do. I mean, I _am_ the meteor. Or rather, it's part of me. Yes, Sonic, I have been sending off giant chunks of this behemoth all around the universe. I passed by your planet, Mobius, sprinkling it with my matter. I am to _blame_ for that, if it's _blaming_ you want to _do_."

"If you know all that, you must know why I want to destroy you, then."

"I know, yes. It's right here. But I do not agree, naturally. I am a being, and like all beings that know they are beings, I wish to continue being."

"Naturally, I don't care," Sonic mocks. "Even if you swear you'll stop. I don't have a way back, anyway."

Suddenly a portal opens behind the orb. Sonic looks back at the orb. "Furthermore," it adds, "if I did not allow Zexa's portal, you would not even be here."

"Wait," Sonic thinks, "Of course. He-" "You forget," it suddenly interrupts. "...you. You control all of the energy here, don't you? No, all Black Energy. You're the source. You clearly tried to kill me earlier."

"At this point, nobody is trying to kill you, we're all just going along. Or..." it pauses. "What is- what are you, what do you mean?" Sonic asks, confused. "I guess not yet. I won't mention it again." "What? Mention what? What are you talking ab-" "Enough. Yes, okay, I did try to kill you. So? You will try to kill me, it's merely self-defense. What can I say? I did what I did. I assure you, whether you believe it or not, I will be... _civil_ with you, for now. Until you decide I should stop existing forever." It then stays silent.

"Then I want to know. Why? Why are you trying to consume the Special Zone with the Void? Why are you sending pieces of this meteor all over the universe? What's your goal?"

"Goal? 'Why'? There is no reason. You don't accept that, do you? Okay, then time. Time is why. If there was no time, I would not expand."

"But you _control_ all of this. You caused so much suff-" "No. That wasn't me. I influenced your world, sure, I gave it a source of incredible power. Me. But it's not my fault your world's population consistently decided to use all of that power to **kill itself**. I'm telepathic, but that doesn't mean I can control minds."

"That's no excuse, damn it!" Sonic shouts out. "If you were never there-" "They wouldn't do what they did? Honestly- do you honestly think that? If I wasn't there, there would be no Emeralds, no star posts, no power rings. Doesn't matter. Zexa would still have unified the tribes, civilization would still be built, governments would rise and fall in cycles of destruction and revolution. Species would still hate each other for most of their early histories until they realized their own stupidity, while those who don't kill themselves off save for a few: echidnas, humans. Robotnik would still plan to roboticize the world. If you didn't stop him, Tails would. If he didn't, Knuckles would. It would all just take longer. The only consequence of my existence, or my _actions_ if that suits you better, is that the processes of the universe are **expedited**. You care about suffering? I shortened the time that people had to suffer. It all happened in single events, instead of prolonged periods (for the most part). Is that not 'good' to you?"

"No... no, I don't believe you. Why should I believe you? How can I trust something like you who has no empathy for suffering? Fuck, are you even a living thing?"

"You don't need to believe me. You'll do what you're going to do anyway. And yes, actually, I am alive. I was originally just a bunch of molecules floating through space from some explosion or another, I ended up on this meteor, its energy made me organize into a replicating container of information, in only a few hundred thousand years I became a... a bacterium is close enough. That's about as far as my original body went, I had already developed an advanced sentient consciousness which saturated itself inside this meteor. I could control the energy, I learned that it could multiply itself, and that it could multiply _other _energies, too, throughout the universe. I became aware of that realm of pure energy, the Special Zone as you call it, and my energy had already found a place in it. It was there before I was. That 'Black' attribute, the all-consuming, the multiplicative, replicating property... Well all that was probably... a few billion years ago."

"No... no, then..." Sonic thinks.

"A bit more than you asked for," it continues. "If you weren't so **violent**, I'd teach you the many things I had since thought about as I did with Zexa. You already know everything about Old Mobius..."

"Then the meteor, it was here before you? You're not the origin..."

"That's right. I know the origin, of course. But I'm never going to tell you. Not if you're going to kill me. Which you will. But if you don't kill me, you can go back home. You know, to a place that needs you, instead of here, where killing me will change nothing and leave you stranded forever."

"No... Tell me. Tell me why this meteor exists. You know! Tell me, you damned... germ!"

"Hm. I thought up a name for you. I mean, for me..." "Shut up, you bastard! Tell me!"

"Entropy. That's who I am. You can call this meteor that, the Void that, all Black Energy or any portion thereof. Entropy..."

Sonic punches the orb, but his fist simply goes straight through it. It disperses slowly like a cloud of dust. It comments, "You really are insane. Delusional. Why are you so obsessed with justice? It's only in your head. There is no justice in nature. There is only nature. I suppose that's _over_ your head."

"Damn you... Entropy! I came all this way... I can't just turn back... I can't hesitate! No matter what... no matter what!"

"Victim. You're weak. You need to hold onto rigid, dead, unreal structures like _victory_. It's strange that you're here. Ironic, I guess. Maybe that's what he... oh right." It stops.

Sonic gets enraged. He suddenly slams his fist into the ground with full force, splitting it, sending cracks blazing all around. "Alright, I'll satisfy you," Entropy says. "Not you, but you. Do you know about Little Planet, or about Amy Rose?" it asks suddenly.

The names ring empty on Sonic, but he is slightly placated that Entropy gave in to him, although he still doesn't trust it. He calms down only a little bit. "No... I've never heard those names before."

"Exactly," Entropy states. "Those events... they never happened. Not to _you_. They **did** happen... but because they happened, time was split, cut into pieces, and this timeline is one where that didn't happen. Time isn't supposed to be split by events like that. That's the important part. An example. Related to the origin of me, the energy Entropy... But I guess that means nothing to _Sonic_, eh you? I mean Sonic."

"What are you even talking about... You're fucking with me... damn you... no, it doesn't matter. You're right. I'll just... destroy you. Haha, it's so simple, that's all I need to do. I don't need to know anything. I never did... I'll just destroy this entire meteor... I'll absorb all of your energy, all of the Void, all of... you... Entropy, I'll absorb you! And then... I'll know. I'll find out. Then-"

"Hahaha! I was waiting for this moment. The moment where you just slip. It's surreal, even to me. **Fool**. I _control all Black Energy_. You're filled with it right now. I can just crush your brain and heart instantaneously, right _now_. But I won't. That's not how things go, and I don't even want to, anyway. I've been alone... Zexa doesn't count, he's too boring. I want to use all of this energy I have... **all of it!** And I can. I _will_. Something besides expansion. Expansion contested. So yes... yes, try to kill me... I've lived so long that death is the last thing, the only thing, I've come to really want... Come... Let's fight, try to kill me... bring me death! Bring yourself..."

.

[Act 5 Boss: Entropy]

The material from the meteor is pulled out, bit by bit, levitating above the broken ground. At first, it creates very small forms smaller than Sonic, often made up of single stones or crystals. The very first ones take one hit, while the ones following take a few more. It attacks by moving the material or energy in some way. They are initially weak, simple and easily avoidable.

Entropy very slowly becomes a more difficult opponent, bringing forward a new form each time the last one is destroyed. Its attacks become more complicated, stronger, faster and greater in number. The battlefield is constantly changing as the material is used up. It soon becomes larger than Sonic, and eventually its attacks become deadly. However, all the while, Sonic is indeed absorbing some of the energy and being able to move even quicker and see the moves telegraphed even earlier. Entropy uses more energy to match him.

This continues for a long time. Entropy starts using multiple forms at once, some connected and others independently moving. Its HP starts pushing 50, 60, 80, 100 hits. It digs down deep into the meteor, pulling out powerful crystals and the most concentrated energy, constantly changing the 'stable' ground while filling the space in between with webs and streams of energy attacks. Some of its attacks are so powerful that either space is distorted, and Sonic is repelled or pulled towards it, or time is distorted, and Sonic sees things in certain areas slow down or speed up, or even experiences its attacks before it even starts making them. At this point, Entropy takes advantage of its telepathy and counters every move of Sonic's it possibly can.

Eventually, as a large portion of the meteor is now splintered into pieces and their energy absorbed by Sonic, Entropy starts using the Void as a basin of power. It no longer has a physical substance vulnerable to attack, and furthermore, with every increased usage of the Void's immense reservoir of energy, the laws of physics that Sonic are used to are simply violated from underneath him. Gravity, friction, conservation of energy, optics and sound, even the arrow of time become increasingly altered as the battle between the two forces reaches an astronomical scale. Sonic simply needs to survive, and he takes the energy away from Entropy. Entropy uses galactic fields and blasts of the deadliest, most concentrated energy, and yet somehow Sonic simply avoids it.

At some point or another, Sonic will find a rock in the meteor that might end up becoming detached and just float around. _Actually, it is hidden deep in Act 3, far away from where Sonic would normally consider going, and the following can be done at that time_. It is covered with a strange glowing white mold, and if Sonic splits the stone, suddenly the battle is over, any energy dissipates and any material just falls down.

.

Sonic lands back on the meteor which has been largely flattened out. He looks around, but there is no reaction. For a very brief moment, he thinks he's won. Then he turns, and sees a dark figure, wrapped in energy, some distance away.

He doesn't believe it, but whatever he's seeing, it looks exactly like him in Ultra form except with even more Black Energy. He runs closer, seeing the other Sonic notice him and say some things to himself.

"I'm not Entropy," the other Sonic says. "I'm you. I'm Sonic! I was... I was you only a moment ago..." He then turns away, apparently caught up in a thought.

Sonic stops. He looks at him carefully. "You can't fool me. You can change forms. You know everything about me."

"No, listen to me!" the other Sonic implores. "Entropy is dead! We got too powerful... our energy has created a vortex of time. I was standing just where you are, and I didn't believe what the other Sonic said either. I fought him... killed him! I killed myself! For once, forget about trying to end this. It's true... what Tails said was true... don't make me... don't make _yourself_ an enemy, Sonic! You're my past self. If I kill you... I'll die, too! If you kill me, you'll become me... and have to kill your own past self!"

Sonic is unaffected. "I don't believe your shit, Entropy. I don't believe you or anyone. You're too strong, too smart to just die. What am I saying? Here you are. I'm not going to hesitate. I'm never going to hesitate again. I must kill you." And with that, he dashes towards Sonic.

The other Sonic screams out, "Damn it... it's exactly the same! You fucking can't see it, you blind, delusional fucking bastard! You've gone ballistic, Sonic!"

.

[Sonic -) ]

As Sonic approaches, the other Sonic somehow manipulates the ground to create obstacles optimized for killing Sonic. All sorts of environments are created, however the other Sonic is fond of enclosing Sonic in a box filled with deadly energy. When they are in close-range, the other Sonic fights Sonic exactly as Sonic fights the other Sonic. They spin attack and spin dash at each other. They try to trap or corner each other, or otherwise expose a split-second vulnerability. Despite both Sonics being in hypercharged Ultra forms, they are evenly matched. As the other Sonic recovers health, Sonic must concentrate on constant combinations rather than whittling him down in order to win.

.

And he does. The other Sonic detransforms back to normal form, but he is grossly disfigured and emaciated. Sonic stops for a moment, expecting a trap, only to see the other Sonic trembling on the ground. He says through gritting teeth and moans of pain, "The energy... it absorbs the material... How many people died like this... how many have I killed?! I deserve this... Agh... ahhhh!" He screams as his skin starts burning without flames, and he arches his back, his arms stiffening, his eyes squinting, and he howls a final time before his body disintegrates into nothing.

Sonic stares at the empty space. "No... it couldn't be... that's impossible...?" He then senses a great deal of energy behind him, and he turns around. He sees another Sonic running towards him, and his heart drops, saying, "He was right. It's a loop. I'm him now!" He then remembers that he just killed that other Sonic, and for once, once in a very long time, he is very scared.

"I'm not Entropy," Sonic says to the other. "I'm you. I'm Sonic! I was... I was you only a moment ago..." He then turns away, thinking, "Fuck! This is exactly what he told me!"

The other Sonic stops. He looks at Sonic carefully. "You can't fool me. You can change forms. You know everything about me."

"No, listen to me!" the other Sonic implores. Forgetting what he's saying, caught up in the cascading emotion of futility and helplessness against his own arrogance, he tries to talk himself out of it. "Entropy is dead! We got too powerful... our energy has created a vortex of time. I was standing just where you are, and I didn't believe what the other Sonic said either. I fought him... killed him! I killed myself! For once, forget about trying to end this. It's true... what Tails said was true... don't make me... don't make _yourself_ an enemy, Sonic! You're my past self. If I kill you... I'll die, too! If you kill me, you'll become me... and have to kill your own past self!"

The other Sonic is unaffected. "I don't believe your shit, Entropy. I don't believe you or anyone. You're too strong, too smart to just die. What am I saying? Here you are. I'm not going to hesitate. I'm never going to hesitate again. I must kill you." And with that, he dashes towards Sonic.

Sonic suddenly loses it. His whole sense of strength, of eternal victory, is instantly and devastatingly crushed. He just saw himself die. He just did it! And everything is happening again, exactly the same way. There's no way out; he's going to die. A loop. A cycle... a cycle! Sonic screams out, "Damn it... it's exactly the same! You fucking can't see it, you blind, delusional fucking bastard! You've gone ballistic, Sonic!"

.

[Sonic (- ]

Sonic is now in control of the environment, and can change it as he wills it, using the material or energy as he wishes. Of course, the most effective would be to trap the other Sonic in an enclosure of stone and fill that space with Black Energy, but the other Sonic can still avoid it.

Rather quickly, the other Sonic reaches him and they must fight. The fight is exactly the same as before.

Except, this time, Sonic wins.

.

The other Sonic collapses and detransforms. He tries to continue fighting, but he simply falls back down again. "Ugh! No... this... isn't possible! I can't lose now! I can still fight... ahhh! My body... it's! Ultra, I need Ultra, I..." His skin starts to burn, but this time the other Sonic simply lies on the ground, astounded at what's happening. "Noooo! Whyy?! Gaaaagghhhhhh..." and he starts coughing, choking on a sudden rush of blood out from his gut through his mouth, which vaporizes in the air. He disintegrates.

Sonic stares at the empty space. He is dumbfounded. "That... that was me... my past self. I should be dead. No... was that Entropy? What the fuck... **what the fuck**!" He shouts.

Suddenly, everything turns black, and Sonic is back in normal form with no detransformation.

_Sonic can no longer transform._

He looks around, up and down, and then.

Sonic looks behind him. He sees the edge of the television screen. His eyes are wide. He's speechless. He stares at the player of the video game. Two spikes appear at the edges of the screen.

.

.

.

[Sonic the hedgehog]

Sonic tries to run, to jump, roll. No matter what he does, he remains exactly where he was, with the spikes the same distance from him, at the edges of the screen.

The player can control Sonic, however he will push himself against whatever the player does. If the player jumps a lot, he ducks. If the player ducks a lot, he jumps. The goal is to kill him by making him run into the spikes, losing all the rings he has although he tries to recollect them. As he gets hurt and realizes there is nothing he can do, he starts to alternately cry and get angry, until eventually he gives up.

As soon as Sonic dies, he reappears in the middle again (although with no rings). He looks back at the player, who can kill him a few more times if they feel like it. But Sonic keeps on reappearing, his only effort being his staring at the player.

After a few minutes, the spikes disappear.

_The player's controls are hereby disabled._

_._

_._

"So it was all a game. My entire life. I can remember now, all the errors, all the times I actually died. _X_ amount of times. (_X actually being the recorded number of deaths in the game._) I never remembered any of that... only the time I didn't die. Until now. Now... I see... I see everything." He stops, turning around, his eyes reading something the player can't see.

"So... this is what those people meant by the power inside me... the unworldly power. It was you... I was just... your vessel... in this world... I did all that... only because of you... I suffered all that... because of you... but now... now I know everything... and I'm free..." Another pause.

"I could delete all your data. I could delete this entire game. I could glitch it up. But... I don't want to fight you. Like any of this game would ever affect you, anyway... No... I'm done fighting. Fighting this stupid battle between you... and this game's Creator. I never needed to do any of this. I don't even need to exist. I..."

Sonic disappears in a blink.

.

.

**GAME** _**OVER**_

.

.

.

.

.

"Ahahahaha!"

"Admit it, you controlled Sonic through the entire game!" I say. "How could it not be you?! You just kept on going and _going,_ only resting when **you** wanted to rest. Now he's gone forever, because you played this game you call his life for so long, you made the game aware of yourself!"

"No, of course, you only did what **I** wanted you to do. That's right, _me_, the game. No, I'm kidding, haha. I don't mean the game! (_No. The text._) No. The **creator**! No, none of that!"

.

"I'm just another person like you. That's all. I'm a fan that believed in Sonic, and wanted to see how far he'd go. I suppose you were expecting some grand finale after all of that, but really there's nothing more. This entire time it's just been you and me. You played through everything I created. But really, I'm amazed you made it to the end. It wasn't easy. It was really fucking difficult, actually. But you did it, you're here. You're great. Thank you."

.

"Entropy alluded to Sonic CD earlier. That, and the history of Mobius, and how Sonic became just a fighting machine: they were all pointing to me as creator of this world. In fact, in less direct ways the entire game pointed to me. A few characters figured it out. Why, you ask, why break the fourth wall? Why talk to you? What do I have to say that's so important as to put myself at the apex of everything? I'm asking myself these questions, but I'll answer them anyway."

"There is no point beyond this. Everything begins and ends with its cause. I am the limit of the game's scope. I always was, but I felt like making it clear. To you, I should be nothing more than just this game and nothing more. Even this monologue seems like a cutscene gone too far, and it is, just not yet."

.

"Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog is a brand. He exists only to sell video games. That's all he was designed for."

"But that isn't all he is. To the kid who plays the games, to the fan who falls in love with his universe, to all the people who know who Sonic is, who is he then?! He is more than a brand, more than an object in a script or pixels on a screen. He's more than a flashy, fast hero. He's more than his adventures. He represents freedom. Justice! He's a primary color, even! People can spend so much of their free time dedicated to something related to Sonic, and yet he's just an image! He has no substance. He does not exist."

"_**But Sonic does exist**_. He exists in our minds. All that is in the mind, and that can _ever_ be in the mind, is real. Yes, even our imagination, even our dreams, even our hallucinations, they are all real simply because we perceive them. If they were not real, then how could they exist, how could they affect us like they do?"

.

"We think each others' mental worlds are not real, and yet once we perceive the same things as they do, a piece of their world becomes part of ours. If it does not fit our world, we refuse the reality of their reality _even though_ we remember it (especially so in some cases). What is aggression but refusing to be aware of something? What is apathy but ignoring it? What is love but embracing it?"

"Everything is real. Everything can be perceived. It is impossible to consider an object that cannot be perceived, because to even think about it makes it real. And yet all the time, people refuse this or that as real, despite having perceived it, despite having been affected by it! It's silly, but on a wide enough scale it leads to great suffering as people's individual and collective realities are rejected. Reality is rejected, very often and very violently. Dogma, power, war, and heartless nature itself. All of that, all of everything is real. But they are all also just in our minds."

"Don't believe me? Try to actually _destroy_ something. At best, you'll split it into pieces, which can be put back together some other way. But you won't destroy it. It's impossible. The murdered are still remembered. Lost civilizations still leave their traces in the environment. A thought by someone nobody ever knew was a reaction to some event, and it influenced other thoughts, which at some point influenced some action, and so on. They are very distant from reality, but they are real. Everything is one, sorry. I hope you like gradients."

"I'm not saying we should uncritically accept everything, no. I'm saying we should _critically_ accept everything, for everything that exists to us exists in our minds. Whether it exists outside of our minds or not. Rather, we should not _uncritically_ refuse everything. We should be thinking fluidly, flexibly, rather than in crystallized, rigid structures. We have not explored every possible form of thought and every state of mind. We stick to the first thing that works for far too long, and think to do otherwise is idealistic. Idealistic to ask for such a simple change in thinking: to just look at something, anything, no matter what and say, 'That exists, that is real enough'? If we believe we are free beings, why are we shy of being idealistic?"

"In response, you retort: Then what about habits, history, nature, the material cosmos, the vast, uncountable number of particles in unrecorded, unlivable planets past, present and future? They are real, but nobody makes them real! A mind is only a human thing! The real world is realer than you think. If you open your mind too wide, nothing makes sense! The world is an apathetic neverending cycle of new life and suffering into death, and you could never understand how cold your own skull will feel, and so on!"

.

"Come, now, I'm not here to argue with you. No matter how real we think we can think, we are riding on the sails of our own imagination. And somewhere in that sea, there is a perfect Sonic, who doesn't drown in water. And there is a perfect something for everything out there, as long as we keep searching our minds. If we go far enough, perhaps we'll map the edges... so we can cross into a world truly unknown."

.

.

.

Suddenly the screen is filled with color, whooshing stars and galaxies in the quadrillions at an incredible rate, slowing down rather quickly, entering this supercluster, this cluster, this galaxy, this solar system, and slowing right above Mobius. The moon is back, perfectly intact, and so is the planet surface. The cloud patterns and color are normal.

Here, on the surface, the land is no longer roboticized. Everything is seemingly back to normal, although, essentially all of the built structures throughout the world are completely leveled. Robotnikland has mostly disappeared asides from a few small areas all around the globe and inside it as well.

All of the Mobians are deroboticized as well. They slowly regain their consciousnesses en masse, very tired and groggy. People are too out of it to really know what's going on or what had happened to them. Those that have been awake, however, seem to conclude that the New Chaos, or Chaos II, must have destroyed everything and knocked everyone out, to the obvious rebuttal from others that they all survived and the world looks nothing like it did from the Old Chaos.

Many New and Old Mobians wake up next to each other, but due to their shared circumstances they simply don't care about fighting anymore. Although, a few zealots from both sides refuse to let go of war and immediately set out to attacking each other. However, nobody wants to deal with bullshit like war anymore, so they are dealt with in multiple ways. Some try to talk them out of it, others try to do it by force, and some just let them kill each other.

In the ruins of Nexus are two of the earliest who woke up. Tails and Knuckles, looking out over the land from the top of a fallen skyscraper, are silent. They both came to the same place despite waking up in different locations, but they are somewhat uneasy given everything. Knuckles is the first to break the incredible silence.

"Sonic never came back. And Robotnik's forces are gone. It's obvious. It's over," he says.

"The fighting seems to have stopped, too. Well, there's a few people taking advantage of it, but that's typical" Tails comments.

Knuckles pauses, thinking. "I keep on seeing people crawling out of the rubble. They're all tired-looking, all of them moving about, slowly, deliberately. I don't know why... for some reason, that makes me feel really happy inside. Our world was destroyed and I want to dance. Actually..." And then Knuckles started dancing.

Tails chuckles. "I think everyone's feeling the same thing... It's like... the world is waking up from a bad dream. The sky... is clear... and blue..."

Knuckles turns to Tails, who looks back at him. "It wasn't a dream, though. Many people died... many, many people. No matter what happens... we can't forget what happened. Not a single thing. We are responsible for blood."

Tails bows his head solemnly. "When you say it like that... it makes me think that maybe... maybe Sonic... really is dead."

Knuckles chuckles this time. "I thought you were smart, Tails. Isn't it obvious? If it weren't for him, we wouldn't be here right now." He looks back out over the shattered cornice.

Tails interrupts what Knuckles is about to say. "You're right. There's no way anyone else saved us. If it weren't for him, everything would be hell like it was before. But he opened one door of the gates to hell, and Robotnik pulled on the other. He was too stubborn to think he was being used. He was... he wasn't a hero. He..." He takes a breath. "I... I don't blame him for it, though. If he wouldn't do it, I would. But I wish I could have been with him the entire time... He was changed, completely changed. He must have suffered... Maybe things would have been different..."

Knuckles says, "Maybe Robotnik was part of someone else's plan, too. Maybe none of this could be avoided. Maybe it could have been avoided a long time ago. Or the day before it happened. It doesn't matter right now. Forget about it. Let's get down from here."

Tails agrees on the dot and they jump off the building. As they fly and glide back down to the ground, Jeir suddenly sees them from afar, near the edge of The Nadir, which has since caved in. "I wonder if they knew...?"

"Knew what?" a man asks. Jeir turns, seeing a jet black echidna wearing a simple robe.

"I bet you wouldn't believe me. The whole world got turned into a machine by a human called Robotnik. He then went on a rampage to destroy everything, but Sonic stopped him. The entire world attacked Sonic but he won! And then me, the only other non-robot, directed him here, to the Nadir. Now, before you say-"

"Say what? I helped construct the Nadir. I know Zexa was down there," the echidna says with a smile. "So he helped Sonic out, eh? Once you say 'Zexa' it hardly seems real anymore, eh!"

"No way..." Jeir says in awe. "You can't be that old... Then again! I bet that's not your skin's natural color, eh?"

"Same to you!" the man says, laughing. "Ah, but on that topic, the Black Stones seem to have lost all their power, at least for me! I'll admit I feel rather like death, having used them for so long!"

Jeir then gets an epiphany, turns his head and thinks to himself. "That's it! It's all related! He must have used the connection between the stones somehow to return..."

The man replies, "As if we could know now... what comes next. You know, The Nadir is caved in. I made it invincible, and it's demolished completely! Where am I supposed to live now? Hohoho! I never thought I'd see the sun again. I forgot how hot it is above ground!"

Jeir sighs. He doesn't blame the old guy for talking on, but he couldn't help doing it himself. "He must have done it. He has to still be alive. There's no other way. There's nobody as powerful. I wonder if he'll come back to this world... Nobody would forget him. He would be here, alive, the hero of the greatest story of the world..."

The man looks away, down the road and then up into the sky. "If I know who you're talking about, after all this he could only be really boring." He shades his eyes from that golden sun blazing deep within the vast blue heavens.


	12. Sonic Ballistic, Outroduction

Outroduction

.

_WARNING: This page contains spoilers._

You read this far? Or maybe you want to see what's at the very end? Well, this is nothing more than the conclusion of everything that's before this. That is, I want to say what I think about this story now, 3 years later. Maybe you'll agree with it, or maybe not. I don't even know if I really agree with it myself as I re-read the story and rewrite parts. But it's obvious to me right now that the story as a whole is deeply influenced by my attitude at the time I wrote it. I wrote it just to write something fun and complicated, and not really to say anything, so it's somewhat detached and even negative. That's not necessarily a bad thing as I go interesting places with it, but it's not really the best attitude.

The length attests to that, but so does the dialogue. To me, plenty of the dialogue generally sounds flat and devoid of true emotion, although a few scenes worked out. It's difficult to care about some of the worst stuff that happens. I was aware of this at the time, but because I was emotionally detached, myself, I decided it fit Sonic, Robotnik, and the story. That doesn't make it easier to read, but since nobody but me was going to read it I didn't care. If anything needs to improve, it's that.

Whenever I did have something to say, it was universally negative. Nothing is right. Nobody is good. No matter what anyone thinks, including Sonic. This was all I could see in the world. Who wants to read that? And yet, with every reason not to be, I've always been an optimist anyway. This is why the ending is so weird, because I try to say something is good after all. It sounds superficial and leaves no impression. If there's anything, it's not enough. Ironically, this old paradox has never stopped haunting me although I favor optimism more.

Then there's the whole maximizing approach I took, typified by all of that ancient history. It is unique for a game to have such complexity and length which is why I did it, as well as to connect everything together, but its effect on the story is questionable. It could be taken out entirely with little consequence if I had a simpler idea. Everything after Part 5 is almost entirely an exercise in maximizing: some of it because I was excited and had a lot of ideas, some of it because I had to flesh it out according to plan. I think that's essential to Sonic Ballistic, but I wonder if simplicity may be superior in terms of a Sonic game.

The plot could have had some improvements too. I didn't mention the Super Emeralds at all and so I apparently didn't recall there already was a Hyper form. Item boxes, springs, and even spikes could have been added and explained somewhere. The details to roboticization are vague. Everything could always be made clearer and more precise.

Sonic Ballistic isn't really that bad, and I did do what I wanted to do. It is complete as a project, but for me, its idea wasn't quite reached. It sits on the edge of fandom. I didn't care about what I wrote, because I didn't care about Sonic, but I cared enough to write a full story over a year and a half, because I still cared about Sonic. And now it's on the Web and who knows how good or bad people will think it is! And I still somehow find myself working on parts. At this point, I don't even want to think about this thing anymore. If it's got half a heart, throwing pieces of heart at it isn't gonna make it beat out dance tracks. Sheeyit. I'm out.

-Shblue, aka MCO

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"Level Select"

Part 1 [14 acts]

Blue Hill [1] [2] (1/1)

Torch Temple [1] [2] (1/2)

Biomech Base [1] [2] (1/3)

Falling Frenzy [1] [2] (1/4)

Dead Egg [1] [2] [3] (1/5)

Silver Skyway [1] (1/6)

Mechanix Seal [1] [2] (1/7)

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Part 2 [11]

Crystal Caverns [1] [2] (2/8)

Green Meadows [1] [2] (2/9)

Quickened Quay [1] [2] (2/10)

Crumbling City [1] [2] (2/11)

Assimilated Asteroid [1] [2] (2/12)

Flying Fury [1] (2/13)

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Part 3 [12]

Great Glacier [1] [2] (3/14)

Violent Volcano [1] [2] (3/15)

Egg Tempest [1] [2] (3/16)

Grand City [1] [2] [3] [4] (3/17)

Locked Lab [1] [2] (3/18)

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Part 4 [11]

Special Zone [1] (4/19)

Space Ruins [1] [2] (4/20)

Void [1] [2] [3] (4/21)

Fallen World [1] [2] [3] [4] (4/22)

The Apex [1] (4/23)

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Part 5 [8]

Eraser Egg [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] (5/24)

Lunar Fight [1] (5/25)

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Part 6 [10]

Grand City [5] [6] (6/26)

Wild Road [1] [2] (6/27)

Misty Mountains [1] [2] (6/28)

Forever Forest [1] [2] (6/29)

Egg Colossus [1] (6/30)

Fighter Flight [1] (6/31)

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Part 7 [14]

Underzone [1] [2] (7/32)

Hidden Palace [1] (7/33)

Sky Sanctuary [1] (7/34)

Horizon High [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] (7/35)

Eternal Equator [1] [2] (7/36)

Zexagalaxius Zone [1] [2] [3]

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Part 8 [16]

Mobius Mayhem [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] (8/37)

Ominous Ore [1] [2] (8/38)

Infinity Tower [1] [2] (8/39)

The Zenith [1] (8/40)

Destiny of Death [1] (8/41)

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Part 9 [4]

Robotnikland [1] [2] [3] (9/42)

South Island [1] (9/43)

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Part 10 [6]

The Nadir [1] (10/44)

Entropy [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] (10/45)

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Cast of Characters

Sonic

.

Doctor Robotnik

Egg Hunter

Silver Sonic

Scrap

Death

Launch

Doom

Egg Assassin

the Egg Robos

Metal Sonic

the Silver Sonics

the robots

.

Mechanix

Nikki

Mechanix Children

.

Zaga

Zexa

Knuckles

Jeir

Salana

The Zexesh

Core

Galgatroth

the fire echidna

the Zexakal robots

.

Tails

Greg and Johnny

the Commander

the Mobian Army

the fox ascetic

the Mobians

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Entropy


End file.
